By Rita Shirley LeBleu

Parish officials and Caturus/Commonwealth key personnel are working together to identify a Park and Ride location for the Commonwealth LNG construction workers.

“I have one major concern,” said Sonny McGee, Cameron Parish Police Jury VP, “the safety of our citizens.” We learned through the Park and Ride constructed at Grand Lake, the stress this places on our infrastructure. No matter how good the design, a Park and Ride just can’t work. We’re pushing to keep them out of the parish all together.”

Caturus focuses on working closely with communities and local officials wherever it operates, according to an email from Bobby Zafarnia, Caturus spokesperson.

“While we understand traffic has recently become a major focus in Cameron, it is important for residents to know that Commonwealth LNG is lower impact by design.”

Construction is modular. That means less workforce will be needed to build it compared to facilities with which residents are familiar.

“Fewer workers translates to much lower traffic impacts,” Zafarnia said. “Still, we take safe traffic flow, parking and road use effects into careful consideration when planning a project like ours.”

According to an informal poll of Police Jurors’ opinions, the proposed Park and Ride for construction workers is only about five miles from the plant. Locating a park and ride further north or west, in Texas, for example, would serve the purpose of traffic reduction.

“We’re currently in the process of working with officials and receiving feedback from our police jurors and parish administrative staff as it relates to our own traffic management and parking plans,” Zafarnia said. “We’ve asked the State of Louisiana to pause current work on our park and ride permitting while we seek to identify the most optimal locations that may exist. The process is working as designed – with two-way communication and transparent feedback.”

McGee said that the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development has been in on the discussions.

Cameron Parish Police Juror Mark Daigle noted that the last time a representative from DOTD was at a Police Jury meeting, he said that the DOTD preferred the Park and Rides be located near the Interstate.