Nowhere are these impacts more evident than at Lafourche Parish’s Port Fourchon. The proximity of Port Fourchon to the new fields make it the port of choice for the intermodal transfer of goods and services, supporting 75 percent of deepwater oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. And the only road leading into and out of Port Fourchon is Louisiana Highway 1—an over-burdened two-lane highway continuously threatened by coastal erosion, often covered with water during inclement weather and in dire need of improvements. Nearly 10,000 vehicles a day travel the southernmost portion of LA Hwy. 1, and this road is the hurricane evacuation route for residents of south Lafourche and Grand Isle, as well as 6,000 oil and gas employees working offshore Louisiana.

Recognizing that the LA Hwy. 1 system is extremely significant to the nation's energy supply and to the billions of dollars generated in OCS revenues, the U.S. Congress named this critical energy infrastructure to the federal list of "High Priority Corridors" in 2001. This designation puts LA Hwy. 1 in an impressive class of only 44 such highways in the nation. Incremental state and federal appropriations over the past few years have provided limited funding for a majority of the pre-construction studies and engineering work associated with improvements to LA Hwy. 1 and the Leeville Bridge, the highway's weakest link.

In March 2006, state highway officials, elected leaders and members of the LA 1 Coalition celebrated the start of construction on a new Leeville overpass, made possible by revenue from bond proceeds and a federal highway loan. Local industry and community residents will service these debts by paying highway tolls on the new overpass for 30 years. Significant funding is still needed, however, to make a safer, more reliable and more secure LA Hwy. 1 a reality.