Business View - November 2015 71
land and 3,200 feet of riverfront, Jeffersonville is acces-
sible from all directions year-round via rail, road, and wa-
ter. Jeffersonville is one of the Ohio River’s fastest grow-
ing ports and features the “Steel Campus,” a consortium
of 12 steel-processing tenants.
Together, the three ports that comprise the Ports of In-
diana system handle more than $1.5 billion in water-
borne cargo per year and provide annual intermodal ex-
changes for 150 ships, 4,000 barges, 60,000 railcars
and 600,000 trucks. Over the years, private companies
have invested approximately $2 billion in distribution and
manufacturing facilities at the ports, currently generat-
ing nearly $6.4 billion in annual economic impact to the
state, while supporting over 51,000 direct and indirect
jobs.
The mission of the Ports of Indiana is to develop and
maintain a world-class port system that operates as an
agile, strategically-driven, self-funded enterprise dedi-
cated to growing Indiana’s economy. While some ports
require ongoing subsidies to maintain their facilities, the
Ports of Indiana does not use state or local tax dollars to
fund operations or infrastructure investments.
Peacock describes the Port of Indiana’s operational
status: “We are a quasi-governmental entity focused on
maritime economic development but we do not receive
any public funding to support that mission. We are com-
pletely self-funded by our operating revenues which come
from leases and also the wharfage charges for handling
cargo through the ports. We have approximately 70 com-
panies located at our ports that lease property or have
some sort of operating agreement with us and we invest
100 percent of our revenues back into developing and
maintaining the ports – infrastructure, dock walls, sew-
LOGISTICS
