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Port of Indiana-Mount Vernon
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Mount Vernon Makes ‘Next Generation’ Terminal Upgrades By Eric Haun
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recently completed a $2 million capital improvement project aims to attract more cargo to one of the nation’s largest inland ports. Situated 153 miles from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the Port of Indiana-Mount Vernon connects the Ohio River Valley region’s agriculture, coal and manufacturing industries to the rest of the world via yearround access to the Gulf of Mexico and Great Lakes through the inland waterways system. Each year, more than 3,600 barges, 160,000 trucks and 37,000 railcars typically pass through the port, moving approximately 5 million tons of bulk commodities and general 38 MN
cargo – more than any other port in the state of Indiana. Recent upgrades including a new concrete floor and an overhead gantry crane at one of its 40-year-old general cargo terminal facilities are geared toward steering steel barges to Port of Indiana-Mount Vernon, port officials are hoping. “We planned the capital improvement projects around a key component of our targeted marketing strategy to attract a steel-related facility to the Port of Indiana-Mount Vernon’s 544-acre megasite,” says Port of Indiana-Mount Vernon Port Director Phil Wilzbacher. Wilzbacher says the “megasite” is one of the largest green field industrial sites available at a public port in America’s May 2020
