Drivers won’t have to stop at 21 railroad crossings across Jackson County. Here’s why.
It will take time before the $1.1 billion LNG plant opens or the wood pellet plant is operational and shipping through the Port of Pascagoula, yet preparations are under way in Jackson County for those things to happen.
Twenty one railroad crossings are being abandoned throughout Pascagoula and Moss Point, and heavy machinery for the expansion of the liquified natural gas plant will arrive by water instead of over the Industrial Road.
The Mississippi Export Railroad now runs through portions of Moss Point and Pascagoula, said Greg Christodoulou, biological program coordinator and wetlands permitting at the Department of Marine Resources’ Coastal Resources Management office.
“The railroad crossings that are being abandoned are still currently being used,” he said.
The line starts in downtown Pascagoula. It continues northeast across U.S. 90 and then north through the two cities. When the project is done, vehicles will no longer have to stop at the 21 railroad crossings along the route.
Christodoulou said a rails to trails project for a walking and bicycle trail could be an option for the abandoned line.
The shortline trains will use the track on the less populated east portion of the towns, he said, starting at the Port of Pascagoula, skirting the old International Paper Mill in Moss Point on a newly-constructed track, and connecting to the existing line just south of the Escatawpa River.
A rail line goes into the existing track, he told the the Commission on Marine Resources, but it can’t be used and was abandoned by the railroad because of tight turns and the size of trains. The CMR at its January meeting approved a permit for the new section of track over wetlands.
The project is designed for more efficient rail transport of goods, such as wood pellets that will be coming to the port from the new Enviva plant in Lucedale.
The $140 million pellet plant is being built in the George County Industrial Park in Lucedale and a $90 million shipping terminal in Pascagoula. The state Legislature appropriated more than $2 million to fix the rail spur between the two.
Planning ahead for LNG
Now that the federal government has approved the application for Gulf LNG to operate the liquified natural gas plant in Jackson County, the company is moving ahead with the permitting process.
The company applied to DMR to fill 39 acres of wetlands on the north and south side of the property at the mouth of Bayou Casotte. Two docks will be built and used to bring in heavy equipment and construction materials and reduce the wear and traffic on Industrial Drive when work starts.
Once construction is complete, the north dock will be transferred to the Jackson County Port Authority and the south dock will be removed, the application says.
A 430-foot tall flare tower will be erected as part of the operation and would be used at times to dispose of excess gas with maintenance, startup and shutdown and under certain conditions, according to the application.
Gulf LNG built two huge storage tanks and a terminal on 38 acres at Bayou Casotte near Chevron in 2011 for an import terminal.
The $1.1 billion facility has sat idle since then. When the energy market changed after construction, the company applied to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for an export terminal. It was the oldest application still awaiting approval when the ERC approved the permit in July.
The construction is expected to cost an additional $7 billion, but work won’t begin until the company has customers client to import the LNG, said George Freeland, director of the Jackson County Economic Development Foundation.
Once construction begins, it is expected to take about four years, Christodoulou said.
This story was originally published February 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
