Michael Rice: Wise port decisions needed

Wise port decisions needed

Your July 24 editorial “Ports investment and dividends” spoke with approval of “investment” in the state ports – huge sums, hundreds of millions, many times the size and revenues of the state ports. Unprecedented state largess. “Investment” is a business decision.

This episode shows why politicians and government agencies cannot be trusted with business decisions. Nor can newspaper editors. Throwing money at the ports is not going to change geography. Money can’t bring Wilmington and Morehead City closer to materials and markets and highway and rail networks.

Nor will such spending do anything for North Carolina’s economy, which is well-served now by our ports and the ports of neighboring states.

Save the Cape follows the state ports closely, and we have not seen anything resembling analysis of return on investment or benefit/cost ratios for these lavish proposals. But we have heard the cheer, “We’re going to be a player!”

It’s that kind of hubris that resulted in $50 million being wasted on a plan for a deepwater port on the Cape Fear River, where the water is 2-feet deep.

Ask not what our state can do for the ports. Ask only what the ports can do for our state.

This story was originally published July 27, 2015 at 5:51 PM with the headline "Michael Rice: Wise port decisions needed."