A neighborhood that rebuilt from catastrophe is now facing a new threat—the Port NOLA grain terminal, freight trains, grain dust, and a project pushed forward without their consent.
The trains are coming back to the Lower Ninth Ward, not as a symbol of progress, but as a warning that once again, New Orleans’ most resilient and most vulnerable community is being sacrificed in the name of economic development.
Later this year, freight trains are expected to begin running daily through this historic part of the city as part of a new grain terminal project at the Alabo Street Wharf. Port NOLA grain terminal and Sunrise Foods International plan to revitalize the aging wharf into a modern site for importing and transferring organic grain. Operations could begin as early as June 2025. But for many Lower Ninth Ward residents, the project is less about revitalization and more about intrusion —yet another industrial incursion into a community still healing from generations of environmental neglect.
What has locals especially angry isn’t just the scale of the project—it’s the secrecy. Residents say they weren’t informed about the terminal’s approval until after key decisions had already been made. Concerns over environmental and health impacts, train noise, increased traffic, and grain dust exposure have all been dismissed or downplayed. What’s worse, recent public records reveal that the project may include additional phases—like vegetable oil processing and chemical deodorizing facilities—that were never disclosed in early outreach.
This is not the first time a predominantly Black community in Louisiana has been told that what’s happening to them is for the “greater good.” Back in 2021, we at Big Easy Magazine reported on a proposed grain elevator in Wallace, Louisiana, where residents charged the project with environmental racism. That story—the battle to “Stop the Wallace Grain” as it became known—parallels what’s happening now in the Lower Ninth Ward. There, too, residents were shut out of the planning process. There, too, promises of jobs and investment were used to justify placing toxic infrastructure in the middle of historic Black land. According to census data, 97.55% of Wallace’s 1,263 residents are Black, and a litany of environmental health studies have shown that communities like Wallace, located near large-scale grain terminals and petrochemical corridors, suffer from disproportionately high rates of cancer and respiratory illness due to prolonged exposure to toxic air pollution.
The Lower Ninth Ward is no stranger to this kind of betrayal. After Hurricane Katrina, the neighborhood became an international symbol of both the consequences of neglect and the strength of community. Residents returned to rebuild homes, churches, and parks that others had written off. They planted gardens where floodwaters once stood. They created public art, formed neighborhood associations, and fought for schools and services long denied to them.
And now, they are being told that grain cars rattling past their homes—loaded with organic product for international export—are a sign of economic progress.
But who defines progress? For whom?
When residents raised concerns about the project, they formed a grassroots coalition called Stop the Grain Train. They held meetings, spoke at council hearings, and demanded transparency. They were met with legalese, vague timelines, and statements about environmental “compliance” that did little to address the real fears on the ground. At a community forum in September 2024, frustration boiled over. As Rev. Willie Calhoun of Fairview Missionary Baptist Church put it, “We’ve been, in my opinion, sold down the river a bunch of times… because there’s no conversation here.”
That lack of conversation isn’t just negligent—it’s a warning sign. Because what’s happening at Alabo Street Wharf is not isolated. It’s part of a much larger pattern in New Orleans and across Louisiana: a pattern of quietly pushing industrial projects into low-income Black neighborhoods, counting on limited political resistance, and dressing it all up as job creation.
The Guardian recently documented this pattern in depth, laying out how the grain terminal deal was negotiated, who benefits, and why residents feel misled. Their reporting adds to the chorus of voices asking: Why here? Why now? Why again?
City Council members have begun asking similar questions. In early 2025, the Council called for comprehensive environmental and social impact assessments and even floated alternative sites such as the Avondale Shipyard. (The Guardian) But as of this writing, Port NOLA grain terminal insists the project will move forward, with Sunrise Foods expected to begin operations this summer.
The irony of it all? The grain being shipped is organic. Marketed as clean, sustainable, and healthy. Meanwhile, the people living next to the facility are expected to inhale dust, lose sleep to freight noise, and watch their property values drop.
The community that rebuilt after Katrina deserves better than this.
This isn’t about opposing economic development. This is about the right to be informed. The right to breathe clean air. The right to walk outside your home without fearing that a train or a corporate expansion will come through your neighborhood unannounced.
It’s about remembering that New Orleans isn’t just a playground for port executives or a launching pad for commodities. It’s a city of neighborhoods, of people, of memory. The Lower Ninth Ward is not a sacrifice zone. It is a living, breathing, struggling, and rising place—and it should be treated with the dignity that history, and justice, demands.
