The St. Bernard Port, Harbor & Terminal District is pleased to announce the first cargo transfer to take place at its new Violet Terminal.

The TEXEL, a 434-foot general cargo ship sailing under the Holland flag, docked in Violet at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 29, marking the first cargo ship to berth at the Violet Terminal.

Two staff members at the St. Bernard Port, Harbor and Terminal District have recently completed vessel training courses required by the U.S. Coast Guard in order to operate a boat with up to six (6) passengers.

Associated Terminals, St. Bernard Port, Harbor and Terminal District's Marine Terminal Operator (MTO), recently expanded its operations and has hired several dozen new employees.

Much has changed since the St. Bernard Port, Harbor and Terminal District purchased and redeveloped the site of the old Kaiser Aluminum plant in the 1980s. While the Port has continued to increase in size and cargo capacity, one thing has remained the same throughout all the change and growth over the last several decades and that is the service of Elton J. LeBlanc, a longtime member of the Port’s board of commissioners.

Becoming a member of the St. Bernard Port, Harbor & Terminal District’s Board of Commissioners is something Larry M. Aisola Jr. feels passionately about.

“It gives me another opportunity to help in the development of St. Bernard Parish,” said Aisola, a lifelong resident of St. Bernard who resides in Violet.

The St. Bernard Port, Harbor & Terminal District was recently named one of only three ports nationwide to be awarded a federal grant from the Department of Transportation to be used for infrastructure improvements.

The Port is set to receive a $13 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant, or a TIGER grant, to help fund the reconstruction of parts of the Chalmette Slip.

Harold Anderson, right, was recently installed as the 2018 president of the St. Bernard Port, Harbor & Terminal District’s Board of Commissioners. With Anderson is the Rev. Henry Ballard Jr., left, who served as the 2017 board president.

When Boasso America first became a tenant of the St. Bernard Port, Harbor and Terminal District in 2002, the then 17-year-old tank container company operated a few locations around the New Orleans area, as well as a handful of out-of-state, domestic terminals.