Business View - October 2015 53
all directions, year round, via rail, road, and river way.
Jeffersonville is one of the Ohio River’s fastest growing
ports, and features the “Steel Campus,” a consortium
that consists of 13 steel-producing-related tenants.
Together, the three Ports that comprise the Ports of In-
diana system handles more than $1.5 billion in water-
borne cargo per year and provides annual intermodal
exchanges for 150 ships, 3,500 barges, 40,000 railcars,
and 600,000 trucks. Over the years, private companies
have invested $1.4 billion in distribution and manufac-
turing facilities at the Ports, currently generating nearly
$7 billion in annual economic impact to the state, while
supporting over 150,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Peacock describes the Port of Indiana’s operational
status: “We are a quasi-governmental entity but we do
not receive any public funding. No tax dollars go into the
operation or construction of our Ports. We operate as a
landlord, port authority. We are completely 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 companies located at
our Ports that lease property or have some sort of operat-
ing agreement with us - roughly 30 companies at Burns
Harbor, just under 30 at Jeffersonville, and another 10 or
so at Mt. Vernon. We invest 100 percent of our revenues
back into developing and maintaining the Ports – infra-
structure, dock walls, sewers, any kind of equipment in
the buildings that we own, maintenance on the buildings,
but also in the purchase of land to expand our Ports sys-
tem.”
Peacock goes on to describe the Ports of Indiana’s ten-
ants and the cargo that passes through the system: “They
operate a wide range of facilities from heavily maritime to
LOGISTICS
