The Ports of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky have been ranked the busiest inland port in the nation, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Navigation Data Center.
The facilities have also are the 13th busiest port in the United States.
The Ports of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky handled nearly 50 million tons of cargo in 2014, according to rankings released by the Corps’ Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center.
Following the Ports of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky in the inland ports ranking is the Port of Huntington Tristate, which is in West Virginia and spans nearly 200 miles over the Ohio, Big Sandy and Kanawha rivers.
“This is tremendous milestone that provides enhanced marketing and river-commerce opportunities,” said Eric Thomas, Executive Director of the Central Ohio River Business Association (CORBA).
In 2015, CORBA led the effort to re-designate the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky ports, expanding the port boundaries from 26 miles to 226.5 miles including a seven mile stretch of the Licking River in Northern Kentucky. The re-designated port includes all or part of 10 counties in Kentucky (Boone, Kenton, Campbell, Pendleton, Bracken, Mason, Lewis, Gallatin, Carroll and Trimble) and 5 counties in Ohio (Hamilton, Clermont, Brown, Adams and Scioto.)
“When we set out to re-designate the Ports of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, we fully expected a rank of 15th in the nation and the second largest inland port,” Thomas said. “Our region is blessed to possess such a strong port complex, arguably the envy of many cities our size in the heartland.”
Other organizations that worked on the re-designation included The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, REDI Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky TRI-ED and The Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana (OKI) Regional Council of Governments.
The US Army Corps of Engineers Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center rankings are available here.