Alabo Street has no marine leg to open
You are looking at the Alabo Street Wharf in Orleans Parish and someone has asked for marine-leg diagnostics. The operator’s own description is a short-stay transfer from ship to covered rail, with no elevator and no silo.
The answer at Alabo Street
Do not order a bucket-leg teardown, a gear-reducer job, or shaft testing for a marine leg at this wharf. Sunrise Foods says the Alabo Street operation is an organic transload: grain moves from vessel to covered rail, storage is short, and a grain terminal with silos is a different kind of plant. The FAQ says construction updates began in spring 2025 and operations were expected in spring or summer 2026.1 The company also says it withdrew its Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality application because projected emissions were about half the minor-source threshold.2
- WWNO reported on 1 November 2024 that the terminal would not have a grain elevator or a silo.3
- A choked-leg procedure from 1910.272(q) has nothing to act on if there is no leg.
- Export houses with real legs are upriver and downriver. They are other parishes.
The rule that does not attach to a leg that is not there
Sunrise distinguishes a transload from a terminal: short handling, measured in days to about four weeks, versus months of storage in silos, with cleaning, drying, and blending. That distinction is the operator’s, on the FAQ, accessed 8 October 2026. 1910.272(q) is the inside-bucket-elevator section: no jogging a choked leg, bearing monitors, a motion device at a 20 percent slowdown, alignment, head and boot access.4 Those sentences presume a bucket elevator. The published Alabo plan does not include one.
If the facility later handles grain dust, housekeeping and collector rules in paragraphs (j) and (l) can matter. They still do not create a marine leg. The updates page says the LDEQ application was withdrawn and that the project qualifies for a regulatory exemption on the emission comparison the company states. This page does not re-decide the air permit. It refuses the leg diagnostic the plan does not support. Non-destructive testing of a drive shaft is not in the FAQ. Ordering it would invent a machine.
If you skip the operator’s description
You mobilize a leg crew to a wharf that has published no head pulley, no boot, and no casing. The FAQ’s contrast is short storage versus months in silos. That claim is the company’s. It does not void 1910.272 in Orleans Parish. It means this wharf is not the Destrehan unloader.
Who signs, who pays, and how long
| Fact | Source | Figure or status |
|---|---|---|
| What the plant is | Sunrise FAQ | Vessel-to-covered-rail transload, not a silo terminal |
| Construction | Sunrise FAQ | Site work from spring 2025; operations expected spring or summer 2026 |
| Air application | Sunrise updates | LDEQ application withdrawn; emissions stated at about half the minor-source threshold |
| Elevator or silo | WWNO, 1 November 2024, quoting the project | Will not have a grain elevator or silo |
| Marine-leg diagnostic fee | Not published | Verify only if a leg exists somewhere else |
How the river elevators differ
Plaquemines Parish, downriver, publishes a floating unloader at mile 56.8 with a Heyl Patterson machine and two certified scales. That is a real unloader. St. Charles publishes barge unloaders inside export elevators. The Myrtle Grove note is the floating rig. The rule page is where a real leg, loader, or collector is in spec. The berthing checks apply to a leg you can point at.
| Point | Orleans, Alabo Street | St. Charles export house |
|---|---|---|
| Leg in the operator’s current description | Not included | Barge unloader is in the ADM tariff definition |
| Storage | Short-stay transfer; no silo in the plan | Blue Water lists 5,500,000 bushels at Destrehan |
| 1910.272(q) motion device | No leg to put it on | Applies unless a written exception in (q)(8) is on file |
| Air permit posture | LDEQ application withdrawn, per Sunrise | Not that withdrawal notice |
Checklist before you order shaft testing
- Read the Sunrise FAQ line that separates a transload from a silo terminal.
- If there is no leg, cancel head-pulley, boot, backstop, and shaft work.
- Keep dust questions separate. A future collector is (l). It is not a marine leg.
- Do not cite the one-million-bushel substitute. There is no published leg storage to compare.
- If the ship and the choked leg are real, you are at another parish’s elevator. Start there.
Fee and timeline the documents do give
The timeline in the FAQ is construction from spring 2025 and hoped-for operations in spring or summer 2026. The updates page discusses federal approval and a withdrawn state air application. Neither page prints a price to diagnose a marine leg, because both pages say the elevator is not the project. There is no fee table to invent. Port inducement dollars discussed in news reports are not a diagnostic rate and are not repeated here as one.
Questions about a leg that the plan omits
Can I still apply the choked-leg rule at Alabo Street?
Only if a bucket elevator is there. 1910.272(q)(1) forbids jogging a bucket elevator to free a choked leg. The operator’s FAQ describes a transfer without the silo terminal’s elevating machinery. A rule with no machine is not a work order.
Did the air-permit withdrawal cancel OSHA duties?
No. Withdrawing an LDEQ application, as Sunrise describes it, is an air-permitting fact. 1910.272 is a workplace standard for grain handling facilities that fall under its application paragraph. The withdrawal does not build a leg, and it does not erase duties at houses that do have legs.
Where is the marine leg if not here?
On the export elevators the port maps and tariffs name: Destrehan and Ama in St. Charles, Terre Haute and ADM Reserve in St. John, Zen-Noh and ADM St. Elmo in St. James, the Port Allen house in West Baton Rouge, and the floating unloader in Plaquemines. Alabo Street is not on that list in the documents above.
Should I schedule non-destructive testing of a drive shaft?
Not from these documents. The FAQ and the WWNO account do not describe a high-stress drive shaft or a gear reducer at Alabo. Testing a part the plan does not include spends the call on a machine you cannot stand next to.
References
- Sunrise Foods International. “Frequently asked questions,” Alabo Street Wharf. Accessed 8 October 2026. Document.
- Sunrise Foods International. “Updates,” including the withdrawn LDEQ application. Accessed 8 October 2026. Document.
- WWNO. “Port of New Orleans plans grain terminal in the Lower 9,” 1 November 2024. Accessed 8 October 2026. Document.
- Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. “29 CFR 1910.272.” Accessed 8 October 2026. Document.
How to cite this page
APA: Alabo Street has no marine leg to open. (2026, October 8). Louisiana Grain Elevator Diagnostics. https://louisianagrainelevator.com/orleans-parish-grain-elevator-marine-leg
MLA: “Alabo Street has no marine leg to open.” Louisiana Grain Elevator Diagnostics, 8 Oct. 2026, https://louisianagrainelevator.com/orleans-parish-grain-elevator-marine-leg.
Chicago: Louisiana Grain Elevator Diagnostics. “Alabo Street has no marine leg to open.” Accessed October 8, 2026. https://louisianagrainelevator.com/orleans-parish-grain-elevator-marine-leg.