GALVESTON, Texas (AP) - An unexpected buildup of silt in the Galveston Ship Channel is causing headaches for the Port of Galveston, and some of the private businesses that operate there.
Port Director Michael Mierzwa called the situation “extreme” during a recent city council meeting.
The Galveston County Daily News (https://bit.ly/2hqVZ5e ) reports the ship channel is dredged to different depths in different areas. It’s relatively deeper to the east and gets gradually shallower to the west.
Last year, the port and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers partnered to dredge the channel to 45 feet deep in areas east of Pier 38, Mierzwa said. The dredging allowed some businesses to accommodate larger ships with deeper drafts, such as those now moving through the expanded Panama Canal, he said.
The dredging was expected to last for some time, but businesses at the port in recent months have found the channel has returned to its previous depths.
“I’ve been doing this for 16 years,” Mierzwa said. “It’s just really unusual to see it happen as fast as it did. We’re just really surprised.”
The exact culprit behind the shoaling hasn’t been identified, Mierzwa said. But officials suspect the silting is the result of the heavy rains and flooding that occurred in Houston earlier this year.
“When we have excessive rain, it tends to wash into the channel,” Mierzwa said. “We’re not hydrologists or anything, but we’ve had a more rapid shoaling than we’ve typically seen. Maybe it was a function of all that heavy rain.”
The silt buildup has forced some port tenants to turn business away.
Michael Leahy, general manager of Malin International Ship Repair & Drydock, said that a ship recently scheduled for repairs in Galveston had to be diverted to New Orleans because the port channel was too shallow.
“We thought we had the depth and they said we didn’t,” Leahy said Monday.
Turning a ship away has a “ripple effect,” Leahy said. Not only does his business lose the work, but the ship’s owner has to find a new place for the repair work and the port loses money in dockage fees.
The Corps has been using two small dredges to correct some of the problem. But the Corps is committed to dredging the channel to only 43 feet deep, Mierzwa said. The port also used its own dredge to make room in front of some docks.
Port officials met with the Corps recently to discuss dredging the channel deeper, but a solution might be some time off.
“At this point, we’re not going to get any relief until the spring,” Mierzwa said.
A Corps spokesperson did not immediately return a phone call on Tuesday afternoon.
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Information from: The Galveston County Daily News, https://www.galvnews.com
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