New Kent County is evaluating the feasibility of a port on the Pamunkey River to handle international cargo from barges to and from ports in the Hampton Roads area.

A study is looking at a freight-transfer facility that could handle some of the more than 100,000 large containers per year that are trucked from ports in the Hampton Roads area west on Interstate 64 to central Virginia.

Barges would carry the containers, many of them 20 feet long, from ports in Norfolk and Portsmouth through the Chesapeake Bay, up the York River to West Point and then up the Pamunkey River to the proposed port property. The site is called Parham Landing and sits on the south bank of the Pamunkey just over a mile west of Eltham.

Containers would then be trucked along state Route 33 to Interstate 64 and on to their destinations.

Mark R. Kilduff, director of economic development for New Kent, said the truck traffic through the county would not be a problem, noting that Route 33 is a four-lane, divided road.

The port could reduce truck traffic between Hampton Roads and New Kent County, improve air quality in Hampton Roads and support economic development in fast-growing New Kent, according to a draft of the study.

The study estimates an average cost of about $537 to mount a container on a truck and carry it from one of the Hampton Roads terminals to the intersection of I-64 and state Route 33 in New Kent, and back. That includes fuel costs.

The study also looks at various container-on-barge scenarios that could cost anywhere from $480 per container to as much as $1,224 per container.

"It's another way of doing things, and I do believe it's an efficient way of doing things," said Mark R. Kilduff, New Kent's director of economic development.

The study looked at receiving barge traffic primarily from the Norfolk International Terminals and the Portsmouth Marine Terminal, both of which are operated by the Virginia Port Authority, a state agency. Cargo would be mainly consumer goods, Kilduff said.

Costs for engineering and construction for the operation, including construction of buildings and gate facilities, would cost between $36.4 million and $52.6 million, according to the study. The operation would use about 66 employees per day, including positions such as crane operators, shift managers and maintenance and repair jobs.

"You're looking at a fair number of jobs and jobs that pay pretty darn well," Kilduff said.

Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce R. Homer said, "We support any transportation mode that takes trucks off Interstate 64 or Interstate 95, including barges."

Officials from the Port of Richmond also are looking at barge service from Hampton Roads. The Richmond Metropolitan Planning Organization has approved $2.3 million toward barge service from Hampton Roads to the Port of Richmond along the James River. That money is subject to approval by the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

David Host, president of T. Parker Host Inc., a shipping agent in Hampton Roads, would provide the barge service to Richmond. He said the feasibility of the New Kent project depends on whether big companies such as Wal-Mart would want a distribution center there. He also noted that completion of a New Kent port would be years away.

New Kent received a roughly $85,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Transportation to help pay for its study, which is being conducted by two consulting firms. Kilduff said he expects it to be finished within the next few weeks.

Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com.