West Plains Receives First Unit Train of Grain at Port of Brownsville

West Plains LLC received its first grain of the season April 25th at the Port of Brownsville with the arrival of 109 rail cars of corn from Nebraska.

West Plains entered into an agreement with the port in 2016 to restore and operate the grain elevator, with capacity to store three million bushels of grain. Since restoration efforts began, West Plains has invested more than $5.5 million in preparation of the shipment, the first at the port in more than seven years. Eventually, West Plains expects to receive 220 rail cars monthly.

The initial shipment of 109 rail cars is equivalent to 440 semi-truck loads. The corn will be stored for less than 30 days before being trucked to feed lots north of the Rio Grande Valley and parts of the Mexican states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon.

Port of Brownsville Officer Jose Luis Ramirez has been honored with the first Fire Chief Life Saving Award for saving a man who was helping his daughter deal with mechanical issues with her vehicle.

The man was struck by another vehicle and Ramirez administered medical attention to him, saving the man’s life, officials said.

"This is the first Life Saving Award that the Brownsville Fire Department has ever bestowed on an officer or a citizen of the City of Brownsville,” Brownsville Fire Chief Carlos Elizondo said. “The reason why we honored Officer Ramirez is because of the skills that he put in place of September in 2016 to a total stranger. He was able to use a tourniquet that he was trained to use and placed it accordingly to that individual that ended up saving his life in front of his daughter, who was present at the time.”

LEED-Certified Facility at Port Would Supply Auto Industry

The Port of Brownsville is closer than it’s ever been to finally landing a steel mill, something it’s been pursuing for decades. Brownsville is one of two finalists for a $1.5 billion, advanced flex steel mill identical to Big River Steel’s new plant in Osceola, Ark., the world’s first LEED-certified facility of its kind.

LEED stands for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.” According to the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED is the world’s most widely used green-building rating system. Big River is expected to decide within a few months whether to build a new mill in Brownsville or expand its Arkansas operation.

The new project has been dubbed “Project America.” Port officials say it would directly support 500 new full-time jobs with a minimum annual salary of $75,000. The mill primarily would supply the automotive and vehicle component industries in Texas and Mexico.

The new company is a joint venture of Hilco Redevelopments Partners, a unit of Hilco Global, and MCM Marine Services, an affiliate of MCM Management Corp.

Gary Epstein, Hilco Global’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, said the purchase of assets from the previous owner was completed and that operations would restart immediately. Kris Wood, Esco’s former vice president of administration, was tapped as SteelCoast CEO.