Posted on January 24, 2021
A DredgeWire exclusive, by DredgeWire correspondent Carrie Gentile
The Houston Ship Channel expansion, called Project 11, will widen and deepen the nation’s busiest waterway under an accelerated timeline set to begin this year.
The multi-year, multi-agency effort to widen the federal waterway is priced just under $1 billion. It will stretch the ship channel by 170 feet along its Galveston Bay reach to 700 feet wide and deepen upstream segments of the channel to 45 feet. The deepening improvements allow for larger vessels to enter the channel, and a wider channel would allow for ships to pass one another more safely. The project also includes new environmental features as well.
“There are more transits per year than in New York, New Jersey, Long Beach and Los Angeles combined, making this project critical to the local and national economy,” Charlie Jenkins said. He is the senior director of the Port of Houston Authority (Port Houston), the non-federal sponsor of the channel.
Mr. Jenkins provided an update during last week’s Western Dredging Association (WEDA) webinar on January 14. He and fellow project leaders highlighted the importance of the project and design elements, current navigational challenges and the proposed timeline for completion.
Over 200 attendees participated on the zoom seminar. Other speakers included Captain J.J. Plunkett, the port agent for the Houston Pilots, Dana Cheney, vice president of Gahagan and Bryant Associates, Inc. and Neil McLellan, senior project manager at HDR. Lori Brownell, director of channel improvement, Port of Houston Authority, was moderator and Kathryn Thomas, vice president, ANAMAR Environmental Consulting, Inc was the facilitator.
Mr. Jenkins emphasized the importance of the waterway and why an accelerated timeline is a priority.
“Just last year, we became the number one port in the U.S. for total waterborne tonnage,” he said. “With over 200 private and public facilities, the channel sustains 3.5 million jobs and has an $802 billion economic impact across the U.S.” He noted that fast-tracking the project by four years would have an economic value of $344 million.
“Why wait?” he asked. “We could go through the normal process that is set by Congress, but we can do this faster by working with our partners. And our relationship with Corps [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] is critical to this process. They are as interested in a fast delivery as we are.”
Industry partners along the channel pledged to contribute 50 percent of the cost, which allows segments of the work to occur concurrently.
He estimates under a normal timeline, the expansion would not be completed until 2030 or 2035. Their goal now is to be done four years earlier.
The next speaker was Captain J.J. Plunkett, the port agent for the Houston Pilots He relayed the channel’s navigation challenges as experienced by the 99 pilots who work it. Often there is only about a beam’s width between two 120-fot wide ships passing in opposite directions.
“It’s called the Texas Chicken,” he said, explaining how the captains maneuver safety past another.
“Ships from opposing directions in the channel meet each other head-on but then one will break and use each other’s wave pressure to swerve safety passed. Even with the incredible skill of the pilots, there is no question that a wider channel is a safer channel,” he said.
The Houston Pilots association is conducting bridge simulations to evaluate the differences in navigating the 700-foot and 800-foot channel variants.
In 2019, Port Houston awarded two services contracts, one to a joint venture between Turner Collie & Braden Inc. and Gahagan & Bryant Associates, Inc. and one to HDR Engineering, Inc., to provide professional engineering and design project coordination services to accelerate the work. Ms. Cheney and Mr. McLellan gave an overview of the segments their respective companies will be working on.
In total, modifications to the 50-mile (80km) channel system includes easing bends, widening the bay reach of the Houston Ship Channel to 700 feet, and widening the Bayport Ship Channel and Barbours Cut Channel to 455 feet. Modifications to the bayou reach of the Houston Ship Channel include deepening from Boggy Bayou to the Main Turning Basin, with selective widening between Boggy Bayou and Greens Bayou.
The project will also provide environmental benefits by using 1.78 million cubic yards of dredged material to create over 400 acres of tidal marsh and bird island habitat and approximately 377 acres of oyster reef in Galveston Bay.
The Port of Houston on January 20th received notification from the USACE that it was awarded a “new start” designation and $19.5 million in federal funds to begin construction in the channel. That project was authorized in the Water Resources and Development Act of 2020 as part of a larger legislative package passed by Congress in December.
For more information, go to expandthehoustonshipchannel.com.
