PARISH PRESIDENT'S REPORT TRANSCRIPT - JULY 21, 2008

Tonight instead of me giving my parish president’s remarks I’d like to at this time introduce Mr. Joel Dupre, the CEO of Southern Recycling. Mr. Dupre is here tonight to make an exciting announcement about our economic development efforts. Mr. Dupre, would you come to the podium please.

Dupre: I want to start with some opening remarks. We’re really excited that we’re coming to St. Charles Parish. I don’t know if everybody’s aware of this, but through working with the Colemans, Corey Faucheux with St. Charles Economic Development, Louisiana Economic Development, we have to have a deepwater site so we can relocate off of the MR-GO. And they all came to us with this piece of property that you guys are all familiar with in Killona.

We just completed the acquisition Wednesday and what you’re going to see here is what we’re showing as our import / export hub for North America. Southern Recycling has been in the New Orleans area for 108 years. We haven’t been excited to move but we’re really excited we’re able to stay in the local area and are truly excited about this prospect. We had a lot of help from, as I said, economic development here, at the state level, the congressional delegation has been phenomenal, that includes both senators, Congressman Melancon, Congressman Jindal at the time, now Gov. Jindal, still supports this project, Congressman Alexander has committed whatever he can do to do this for the good of Louisiana. Judge Chaisson and the Port of South Louisiana has also been very supportive. I met with President St. Pierre and also Councilman Raymond, and we’re just so excited about this.

This is one of the few projects that it seems like everyone’s very positive about, and we’re really looking forward to coming here. What we’re talking about here is an operation that should rival what we’ve got in New Orleans now, which is about 400 jobs. We do about 100 jobs direct and about 300 as direct subcontractors just as an area of expertise issue. We’re looking at an initial investment of about $40 million including the property. That should continue on and continue to grow. What we don’t know is how many of those jobs are going to come from New Orleans. But I would expect no more than about half so there should be, certainly, a lot of job creation in St. Charles Parish, but it’s 100 percent retention in Louisiana.

Corey Faucheux: Let me just add that we are certainly excited and we need to thank Mr. Dupre for his investment in St. Charles Parish. And we’re looking for this to be a catalyst for further deepwater development in St. Charles Parish and that entire St. Charles / St. John area. We don’t have a lot of vacant tracts of dry land left that are on the river, but that’s where most of them are – up near the St. Charles / St. John line.

So with his investment, the improvements that he’s going to make, hopefully with the port’s assistance, on the river, we can expect this to be the first of many more announcements to develop that deepwater business park there. There’s a very attractive 91-acre parcel there along 3141 and the tracks that we feel is just prime for development. And again Joel and his staff and team has been nothing but positive about doing the things that we’ve asked them to do both from trying to do as much business locally to hiring those folks that want to go to work. Again, this is a big win for St. Charles Parish, for New Orleans and for the state. Because we were not in this alone, they were also looking at sites outside of Louisiana and outside of the region. But with the work of the Port and from the parish and from the state, we were able to make a strong enough case, and we feel that the site is a great site if not one of the best sites on the river.

Again, we’re looking for some great things, and thank you.

St. Pierre: I just want to thank Mr. Dupre for bringing this very exciting company to our parish. It’s part of our vision to develop a world-class port and offer rail, deepwater facilities and also the Mississippi River. And judge, this is a prime opportunity for the port to jump in with us, give us a helping hand and spend some money in St. Charles Parish.

Dupre: You’ve made me feel very welcome, and we’re looking forward to getting here and we’re really excited about getting this project going and going quickly.

Paul Hogan: Can you explain the type of activity that’s going to happen on the river and what’s going to happen on the other side?

Dupre: Well, this is full-range metal recycling. All the way from aluminum cans from housewives that collect aluminum cans to deepwater marine demolition. I’m hedging my bets a little bit because with what’s going on in 2010 with single-hull tankers that need to come out of service, that would happen on the batture side. Obviously, with the way that property is set up, there’s nothing anybody would see but there’s certainly a lot of business.

On the dry side, we’re anticipating putting in a mega-shredder, which would make this the largest recycling facility in the South, not just the Gulf. And again, if everything goes the way we want it to, we may have hedged our bets a little bit on what our investment will be, as well as job creation.

Corey did want me to point out, the environmental impact of this is minimal, if any. In fact, this should be an improvement in the environment just because we’re required to handle all the water that goes over all these processes. I think we have one small permit from DEQ and that’s it.

Billy Raymond: I had a chance to meet with them also and talk about some of the things that I would like to see; it’s in my district, and we did specifically talk about the jobs and whatnot, and they did agree to look at getting some jobs locally for the residents up that way.

Dupre: It’s got to be our primary source. We have to be a part of the community. We don’t know how to operate any other way.

For more information, contact Public Information Officer Renee C. Allemand at (985) 783-5000 or rallemand@stcharlesgov.net.