NEW ATHENS, Ill.—Construction will begin in December on a two-phase project that officials say will dramatically increase activity and grow jobs at a St. Clair County port along the Kaskaskia River.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., visited the Kaskaskia Regional Port District terminal in New Athens Friday, to talk about an $8 million grant for the project funded through the 2021 federal infrastructure bill.

The New Athens port receives scrubber stone, a form of limestone, from St. Genevieve, Mo. via barges and runs a single shift that sends 32 train cars a day to the Prairie State Energy coal-fire power plant in Marissa. The scrubber stone produces cleaner coal and generates two byproducts, gypsum and fly ash, which are ingredients in wallboard and cement.

“Up until recently it was not economical to get to market, so they were landfilling those products. But because of the loss of coal-fired power plants around the midwest and other places, those products now are valuable and instead of landfilling them they can now move to market and serve the construction industry,” said Ed Weilbacher, General Manager of the Kaskasia Regional Port District.

A total of $10 million in federal funding, combined with $10 million in state funding, will turn the New Athens location into a 24/7 facility. Officials say the four full-time positions at that location will turn into 35 as the facility more than doubles its outbound capacity to 2 million tons annually.

The first phase, set to start construction in December, will, build a second rail loop to allow for products to move in both directions at the same time. The second phase, funded with the infrastructure funds, will mean a new railyard near the terminal and an upgrade for almost six miles of rail track.

“We decided that the key to building America’s economy was to make sure that we had a more efficient system, a more productive system, a more profitable system, and more people went to work in the process of making it better,” Durbin said.

“It’ll mean a better operation, be more people working, and all of the product is gonna be not only good for our economy, but good for our environment as well,” he said.

The long term future of the Marissa coal-fired plant is unclear past the next 20 years, Weilbacher told Durbin, but he said the work being done over the next three years to improve the New Athens port site would also set the facility up to bring in grain from Canada and transport it to the port of New Orleans. 

Weilbacher said the improvements also mean safer road conditions in the area.

“None of this product ever hits the road. It all goes by rail or water. Just the 750 thousand tons of scrubber stone that goes to the power plant is about 30 thousand trucks one way. That doesn’t hit the road,” he said. 

“Trucks on the road are safety hazards and when you have intersections that you have to cross it’s always a chance for someone to get hurt or injured.”