The Kaskaskia Regional Port District - page 7

Business View Magazine 7
Barge inbound handling includes steel, fertilizer, and
palletized goods. A new outbound conveyor was in-
stalled in 2015, and an eight-inch waterline was in-
stalled in 2016. The facility is operated and serviced
by the Southern Illinois Transfer Co.
“We have a mix of companies located there,” says
Weilbacher. “We have a plant there, called The Mate-
rial Works, and they process coiled steel. They bring in
steel either by water, rail, or truck; they stretch it and
clean it; they cut it to blanks; and then they ship it back
out again. They employ about 90 people in three shifts.
The Gateway FS Company has five different counties
that they service. They just recently expanded their fa-
cility to be an automated, dry fertilizer distribution cen-
ter that’s going to serve a large market. It’s probably
the most efficient distributor of fertilizer in a fifty-to-
hundred-mile radius. They completed that structure,
this past spring and they’re still expanding - they’re
going to build a liquid fertilizer distribution in that loca-
tion, too. They’re going to bring in bulk commodities,