Presidents of the River Parishes talked about construction projects, levees and freshwater diversion projects Thursday at the River Region Chamber of Commerce Parish Presidents' Breakfast in LaPlace. The presidents of St. Charles, St. John the Baptist and St. James parishes said they have done a good job of promoting the region as a whole. "Our residents work in...
Presidents of the River Parishes talked about construction projects, levees and freshwater diversion projects Thursday at the River Region Chamber of Commerce Parish Presidents' Breakfast in LaPlace.
The presidents of St. Charles, St. John the Baptist and St. James parishes said they have done a good job of promoting the region as a whole.
"Our residents work in their parishes and their residents work in our parishes," St. John President Natalie Robottom told the group, which met at the Quality Inn in LaPlace.
Robottom and St. Charles Parish President V.J. St. Pierre Jr. said they expect to see tax receipts dwindle due to slower economic activity that includes having less inventory and sales at area refineries.
Robottom said the parish has felt the weight of the national recession with an 11 percent unemployment after the completion of the Marathon Oil refinery expansion was completed.
Several new businesses have opened in the parish and the Safeland Storage terminal facility in Mount Airy, where construction is expected to start in November, providing 500 construction jobs and 175 permanent jobs.
"That does not replace the Marathon expansion, but we shouldn't expect to have that all the time," Robottom said.
St. James Parish President Dale Hymel, Jr. said the parish plans to build a new court building and is planning a cross-river pipeline for water service.
Hymel said that parish officials are hopeful that the Nucor Steel company will choose to locate a multi-million dollar plant in Convent near the Sunshine Bridge. A decision by the company seems imminent, he said.
St. James officials also are working to enact the parish's first master land use plan, that is designed to determine how much more industry is desirable in the parish, and
Dale Hymel Jr.which types it should seek, as well as designating land for that purpose. The parish currently has no zoning ordinance.
"A lot of people in St. James don't like to hear that Z-word, but we've been fortunate in the past that industry has located in the north end of the parish and residents have moved into the south end. But that is starting to change."
Possible changes without zoning would be require industrial sites to have larger buffer zones.
Hymel said a planned freshwater diversion project near Romeville will begin revitalizing cypress forests, re-build eroded land and improve the health of Lake Pontchartrain when it opens in 2013.
St. Pierre said St. Charles Parish is continuing to lobby federal agencies to build a west bank hurricane protection levee for the parish.
He also said he was initially disappointed when consultants for the parish projected only 8 percent growth over the next 10 years.
But he told the group that the good news is that the parish won't have to wrestle with with overburdened roads and drainage systems, caused by rapid growth that St. Tammany residents have had to contend with.
"We have time to put in all the infrastructure now, and let the growth come to you," he said.
St. Pierre said the parish has also lost sales and property tax revenue because the refineries and plants are carrying less inventory, but said construction projects, including the $860 million replacement of steam generators at the Waterford 3 nuclear power plant, other projects at Monsanto, Air Products, and at Valero will help to shore up the projects.
"We have some good things going on," he said.