WALLACE, LOUISIANA, US — Greenfield Louisiana announced on Aug. 7 that it no longer plans to build an $800 million grain export facility in Wallace, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans.

In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), the company said it halted the project because of a lengthy permit process by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

“Permits for similar projects usually take six months,” the company said. “We’ve been waiting nearly three years. We did everything in our power to keep this project on track because we believe in this community. But sadly, we are no closer to a resolution than we were when we began this process.”

The project faced several obstacles. The site on the Mississippi River is located between the historic Black community of Wallace and Whitney Plantation, a tourist attraction dedicated to telling the history of enslaved people. The owners of Whitney Plantation sued the parish to keep the grain facility out of Wallace, citing environmental concerns.

“The Army Corps of Engineers has chosen to repeatedly delay this project by catering to special interests — many of which are out of state groups — when it should have been listening to local voices here on the West Bank,” Greenfield Louisiana said on its X account. “We can no longer wait for an outcome that may never come.”

When the project was first announced, Greenfield Louisiana said the 248-acre export terminal would include 36 grain silos and employ 60 people in barge, dock, rail, truck, storage, processing and elevator operations for wheat, corn and soybeans. The company estimated that it would move 11 million tonnes of agricultural products annually from the site.