Port of Goderich

Goderich, ON · Municipal · Town of Goderich · Lake Huron (Maitland River harbour mouth)

The Port of Goderich is the only deepwater port on the east shore of Lake Huron, handling roughly 250 commercial vessels (freighters) per year that load and deliver bulk commodities — principally rock salt from the adjacent Compass Minerals/Sifto mine (the world's largest underground salt mine), along with grain and calcium chloride. It is owned by the Town of Goderich, which purchased the harbour from the federal government in 1999 under the port divestiture program and completed a roughly $29 million infrastructure rebuild (break walls, river wall, piers) by 2015. Day-to-day operations are run by the Goderich Port Management Corporation (GPMC), a not-for-profit formed by the commercial port users that manages the port as an agent on behalf of the Town, covering vessel traffic, maintenance, user fees and asset management. The harbour is dominated commercially by the Compass Minerals salt operation and the Parrish & Heimbecker grain terminal, and the port is a member of Green Marine and the Chamber of Marine Commerce / Highway H2O network.