Caption: Bipartisanship and collaboration were on full display at the Project 11 Dredge Kick-Off Celebration event on June 1st, with the Port Commission, and Congressional, State, and Local delegations, leading the way.

Partnership, progress, and potential were on full display at the Port’s Project 11 Dredge Kick-Off Celebration on June 1^st. Over 200 stakeholders and elected officials gathered to commemorate the kick-off for the $1 Billion project hosted by Port Houston and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the USACE Galveston District Headquarters.

A joint effort across various federal, state, and local agencies helped bring Project 11 to life. The project received a major boost from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in January 2022 when $142 million was allocated to the project to help complete Segment 3, the Barbours Cut Container Terminal section. At 82% funded, Project 11 has received wide-spread support from a diverse group of elected officials and it’s on track to be completed by the end of 2025.

Ric Campo, the Chairman of the Port Commission delivered remarks to the crowd highlighting the partnership it takes to bring a project of such magnitude to this point. Chairman Campo also pointed to the potential and progress the project represents, citing that over 75% of the jobs sustained and created by the Houston Ship Channel are located in disadvantaged communities. Once completed, Project 11 will generate an additional $134 million annually in economic impact, equating to $367,123 a day in added benefits for the American worker and their families.

The newly retrofitted clean Dredge Carolina, owned by Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, arrived to Galveston for the event. Dredge Carolina is equipped with Selective Catalytic Reduction technology to significantly reduce NOx emissions, resulting in 38% cleaner than Tier 3 equipment. Lasse Petterson, CEO of Great Lakes Dock and Dredge Company, states “Dredge Carolina is one of the largest dredges in the United States. She is 340 feet long, 65 feet wide, and has about 16,000 horsepower.”

USACE Southwestern District Commander Col. Kenneth N. Reed stressed how important Project 11 is for the Galveston District and the District’s higher headquarters. “As the federal agency that maintains and constructs much of the nation’s public infrastructure, the Army Corps of Engineers continues to work with Port Houston on one of the most impactful infrastructure projects nationwide.”

The work of widening and deepening the Houston Ship Channel will have tremendous positive economic, safety, and environmental benefit for the entire nation. To learn more, visit www.expandthehoustonshipchannel.com.

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Caption: Port Houston's Community Relations and Maintenance teams installing Little Libraries at Galena Park High School. 

Little Library Community Initiative

Port Houston and the Galena Park Independent School District partnered to bring some joy to the community. Leaders at Port Houston and Galena Park decided to start the Little Library Community Initiative.
This project began as an idea from one local member and her idea to support her area . With the help of Galena Park ISD librarians, Port Houston team members used their skills to design and build eight custom little libraries for the neighborhood.

Caption: The installation of Galena Park's Little Community Library.

The Little Library Community Initiative provides people of all ages 24/7 access to books and educational materials. These libraries are complete with a planter base filled with native Texas pollinator plants. Students and individuals can use the little libraries to discover a variety of books as well as share a love of reading, both in English and Spanish.

Why does book access matter?

According to Literacy Texas (2022), “Today, more than 43 million people in the United States cannot read or write above an elementary level and around 3 million Texas adults read below a basic level.”² With easy access to mobile devices, computers, social media, and television, it’s getting harder for students and adults to advance their reading and writing skills.

Roughly 63% of children were not reading at the appropriate grade level before the pandemic. That number increased to 72% according to LiteracyNow (2021).⁴

This initiative will encourage Galena Park community members to love reading, increase their access to books of all levels, and increase their comprehension levels with books in different languages.

Houston Yacht Club Boat Parade

Caption: Port Houston's Community Relations team joining the Houston Yacht Club's Opening Day fleet parade. The Port Houston Fire Boat and crew helps lead the way!

Port Houston’s team joined Commodore Farley Fontenot, and the Houston Yacht Club for the 2022 Opening Day fleet parade. The Port Houston Fire Boat and crew helped lead the parade and welcome the participating boaters.

This year the Houston Yacht Club celebrates the 125th anniversary of their founding, and today the oldest yacht club in Texas. (The Houston Yacht Club, 2022).¹ The opening day celebration took place with the traditional boat parade in which members’ boats pass in review and exchange salutes with an anchored officer’s boat. As a strategic leader and advocate for the channel, Port Houston is proud to join and support local recreational users of the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay.

Port Houston is also excited to be a 2022 sponsor of Houston Yacht Club’s upcoming Beacon Group A-Class Catamaran World Championship Regatta taking place in Galveston Bay this May. Participants will be joining from all over the world to compete in the international maritime event. HYC is noted for excellence in race management and hosts 2-3 national or international regattas per year.

References
¹Houston Yacht Club. Home – Houston Yacht Club. (n.d.). Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://houstonyachtclub.com/web/pages/home

²Literacy facts. Literacy Texas. (2022, April 12). Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://www.literacytexas.org/impact/literacy-facts/

³Simmons, K. S. (2022, April 22). Texas facing crisis as student reading gap grows during pandemic. ABC13 Houston. Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://abc13.com/literacy-illiteracy-education-educators/11776796/

⁴The Problem. Literacy Now. (2021, September 3). Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://literacynowhouston.org/about-us/the-problem/

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The Houston Ship Channel complex and more than 200 private facilities along the channel, collectively known as the Port of Houston, is now the number one port in the United States in terms of total waterborne tonnage. It is also ranked first for foreign waterborne tonnage and number of vessel transits with nearly 285 million tons of cargo moved through the port overall in 2019.

This waterway expansion is critical in helping widen and deepen the channel for safer and more efficient navigation of vessels calling Port Houston’s eight public terminals and the more than 200 private facilities operating along the channel. Specifically, the project will widen the channel by 170 feet along its Galveston Bay reach, from 530 feet to 700 feet. It will also deepen segments up to 46.5 feet, make other safety and efficiency improvements, and craft new environmental features.

The design aspect of the project, which is the eleventh major widening and deepening of the waterway in its history, already is virtually completed. Among the next steps will be to start construction in Galveston Bay this year.

“To go from Congressional authorization to securing a pathway for construction in less than a month is phenomenal news,” Port Houston Chairman Ric Campo said. “Project 11 will provide the greater Houston metropolitan area continued job growth and economic development opportunities, while improving air quality by reducing traffic congestion on the channel.”

The goal is for an initial 3% reduction of NOx from vessel emissions. A wider, deeper therefore safer channel has fewer transits, shorter wait times and decreased turnaround distance. During the next 11 years, it is anticipated air emissions will be reduced 7% annually.

Port Houston Executive Director Roger Guenther called the New Start designation a momentous occasion for the port.

“We’re grateful for our bipartisan Congressional delegation and the many channel stakeholders who aggressively advocated to get this project authorized and funded,” Guenther said. “Without their continued support, we wouldn’t be in this position today.”

The channel is one of the most vital waterways in the country, connecting the Gulf Coast to other ports around the globe. The waterway has more deep-draft ship visits than any other port in the country, and nearly 200,000 barge transits every year as well. As energy and manufacturing exports increase and vessel sizes grow, improving the channel continues to be nationally important.

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Evia Island, a six-acre bird island located along the Houston Ship Channel and the mouth of East Bay, is an extremely important waterbird nesting site in Galveston Bay. With nearly 10,000 nests comprised of 10 bird species, it’s the breeding site with the most nesting pairs in the Galveston Bay system. These bird species include white pelicans, brown pelicans, great blue herons, egrets and roseate spoonbills among others.

Port Houston played a key role in creating this bird island during the last major Houston Ship Channel deepening project in 2005, where the channel was deepened to 45 ft. and 530 ft. wide through Galveston Bay. The island was made from dredged material through a collaborative effort with the Beneficial Use Group led by Port Houston and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and also included Houston Audubon Society.

Helping create and improve environmental features along the Houston Ship Channel is a priority for the team at Port Houston. “Evia Island replaces habitat being lost on the coast. There are plans to create more of these bird islands, throughout Galveston Bay, as a result of the proposed the Houston Ship Channel Expansion – Project 11,” said Kyle Clark, manager of channel improvement at Port Houston. Project 11, currently in the planning phase, will widen the channel by 170 feet along its Galveston Bay reach, from 530 feet to 700 feet. It will also deepen upstream segments, make other safety and efficiency improvements, and craft several new environmental features.

Richard Gibbons, conservation director at the Houston Audubon Society said, “The use of dredge material to recover wetlands and colonial waterbird nesting habitat is an incredible achievement. Fortunately, we were successful in creating one of the most productive nesting islands on the Gulf Coast with Evia Island. The Houston Audubon Society is grateful for the opportunity to work with Port Houston in managing the many thousands of birds that depend on Evia for nesting and year-round roosting.”

The Audubon Society, through a contract with Port Houston, manages Evia Island for colonial waterbird nesting to maintain the island as a productive refuge. Some activities of their habitat oversight include vegetation management to attract specific species of birds and efforts to control fire ants on the island that may impact nests and young bird hatchlings.

For the past five years, Port Houston and the Houston Audubon Society have focused on developing enhanced monitoring techniques to accurately capture the number of nesting pairs utilizing Evia Island. The Audubon Society has incorporated the use of aerial drones and wildlife cameras in their monitoring efforts. The Port has been supporting the Audubon Society with its annual winter bird counts with volunteer staff and boating equipment through its vendors. The unique size and location of Evia Island allows the Audubon Society to test new technologies before use at some of the other extensive sites in Galveston Bay.

Learn more about the environmental benefits of Project 11 at www.expandthehoustonshipchannel.com/benefits/. 

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Caption: Aerial view of Houston Ship Channel.

A professional services contract of $5.5 million was approved by the Port Commission and awarded to TC&B/GBA, a joint venture of Turner Collie and Braden, Inc. and Gahagan & Bryant Associates, Inc. at the September Port Commission meeting.

The ship channel expansion work includes critical-path professional services for engineering, design and project coordination. The widening and deepening of the ship channel will allow for economic growth to continue. Given significant demand from industry to take advantage of current economic conditions and facilitate future growth, the Port of Houston Authority has proposed an expedited schedule whereby dredging could begin by 2021 and the project be completed in 2024.

The Houston Ship Channel is the busiest deep-draft international trade waterway in the nation, and improvements are needed for safety and the future growth of regional and national commerce.

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Caption: Sen. Ted Cruz with port leadership and stakeholders.

Sen. Ted Cruz voiced strong support for the Houston Ship Channel Expansion Project, after being briefed in early October by Port Houston leadership and top executives representing industry along the channel. Sen. Cruz said the widening and deepening project is important to Texas and the nation and lauded the leadership of Port Houston and the business community for their willingness to work together to get the project completed in an expedited manner.

He called the Port of Houston “the crown jewel of the Texas economy,” and said expansion of the
channel will trigger the creation of even more jobs. The project has been the focus of a four-year
study conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Port Houston that is expected to be
finished next spring. Once the study is completed, Congress will consider authorizing the project in the
Water Resources Development Act legislation in 2020. At the same time, Port Houston and industry
stakeholders are working together to garner support for the project’s authorization by Congress as
well as collaborating on possible funding and other strategies to accelerate the project.

During the meeting, Port Commission Chairman Ric Campo provided an overview of the project for
Sen. Cruz. Industry representatives joined the port in advocating for the importance of the expansion
project.

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Port Houston and industry stakeholders meeting with U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady.

Port Houston executives and Targa Resources welcomed U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s staff at the Bayport Container Terminal Aug.19.

The officials highlighted the importance of the Houston Ship Channel Expansion Project to the nation and the value of the channel and the industry and jobs that it supports.

Just days later on Aug. 27, Port Houston’s Executive Director Roger Guenther and channel industry partners briefed U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady on the project. The waterway’s importance to the nation’s economy was the key focus of the meeting.

Port Houston and industry stakeholders are working together to address the challenges with the current channel, as well as meeting the industry needs for future improvements.

The Port of Houston is an asset to the state and national economies. Widening the nation's busiest waterway to allow for improved two-way traffic should lead to safer and more efficient economic growth.

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ study of potential improvements to the Houston Ship Channel is nearing completion. The study, that began in 2015, has been conducted in partnership with Port Houston and has examined the feasibility and national benefits of various widening, deepening and other improvements for the channel. This will be the eleventh major improvement project to the waterway over its century and a half history.

As the local sponsor of the waterway, maintaining and improving the Houston Ship Channel is the top priority for Port Houston. The improvements being studied seek to ensure that the waterway safely continues to accommodate the growth of commerce in the greater Houston region. “We hope to make this a model project for the nation,” said Port Houston Chief Port Infrastructure Officer Rich Byrnes.

The improvements are needed as soon as possible, so Port Houston is working with the Corps, Congress, the administration as well as many local partners and stakeholders to expedite the approval and funding of this major project. The project is expected to cost one billion dollars, and port officials would ideally like the project to begin construction within the next few years.

“Through commitment and principles learned from our predecessors, and working together… our forward momentum is accelerating,” said Port Houston Executive Director Roger Guenther.

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