27 October 2025
By Ayiana Love
Contributing Writer
Residents in the Lower Ninth Ward and Holy Cross neighborhoods of New Orleans continue to protest a plan by Sunrise Foods International to repurpose the Alabo Street Wharf rail track into a grain terminal.
The project was approved on June 27, 2024, when the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans signed a lease agreement with Sunrise Foods to reopen nearly two miles of long-unused freight tracks running along St. Claude Avenue in Arabi through Alabo Street in the heart of Holy Cross. Work on the project began on October 1, 2024.
According to the advocacy group Stop the Grain Train, the grain terminal could have serious environmental and quality-of-life impacts on the community.
Cheryl Nicks, a Lower Ninth Ward native and member of the Lower Ninth Ward Neighborhood Association, expressed concerns about the project’s potential health effects.
“We have a concern about grain dust getting into the atmosphere, causing people health issues, especially the elderly and the children,” Nicks said. “And people with asthma and breathing problems could possibly be affected by this.”
Nicks and other residents also worry about property damage, declining home values and safety risks for children who walk to school or wait for buses near the train route.
“There are a lot of children in the neighborhood who have to walk to school and walk to buses,” Nicks explained. “This train would roll through residential neighborhoods daily – some of the tracks are like 15 feet from residents’ doors.”
Community members have organized through Stop the Grain Terminal, a coalition of residents and environmental advocates, to oppose the project. Their efforts have drawn support from local officials.
On Sept. 11, 2025, New Orleans City Councilmembers JP Morrell and Helena Moreno introduced a resolution opposing the Alabo Street project, citing residents’ concerns about its negative impacts. The resolution stated that the city “opposes the Alabo Street Sunrise Food grain terminal project in the Lower Ninth Ward but would support a grain terminal project in a more industrial setting that does not disrupt residential neighborhoods.”
In response, Sunrise Foods urged the council to “reconsider the resolution opposing the Alabo Street Wharf project and the request for it to be moved to an alternative site,” stating how opposing this project “reinforces the idea that New Orleans is not a place to build and grow.”
Sunrise also states how this initiative is “expected to generate 17 new jobs in the Lower Ninth Ward and up to 34 new indirect jobs, as well as over 150 additional construction jobs.”
Sunrise Foods also claimed to have canvassed 1,150 households to inform residents about the project, but Nicks disputes that outreach.
“On September 20, a Saturday, myself and some of the Xavier students canvassed the neighborhood, and we went door to door,” Nicks explained. “We talked to a lot of residents and none of them knew that this project was going on.”
According to FOX 8, Sunrise Foods held its first public meeting at the Sanchez Multi-Service Center, where Michael Corbett, the company’s executive vice president, addressed residents.
Corbett said the meeting was meant to dispel misinformation and rumors about the project, address community concerns and clarify the company’s intentions. He emphasized that the facility would not be a grain terminal, but an “organic transloading facility,” and that Sunrise Foods has measures in place to minimize grain dust.
Meanwhile, Norfolk Southern, the railroad company responsible for rehabilitating the tracks, has assured residents that only one train per day will operate Monday through Friday during daytime hours.
Norfolk also stated the Alabo Street rail “has been in place since before 1920 and has been operating as a freight railroad since at least 1923” so it isn’t going into new areas or new territory.
“We support 350 businesses in the state, helping to remove truck traffic from local roads and reducing CO2 emissions by nearly 80 percent when compared to truck work,” said Heather Garcia, a senior communications manager for Norfolk Southern.
Despite these reassurances, residents like Nicks remain firm in their opposition, arguing that economic growth should not come at the expense of community health and safety.
City leaders have not yet announced their next steps, but community members say they will continue to demand transparency and accountability from both the Port and Sunrise Foods.
Sunrise Foods International did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
This article originally published in the October 27, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.