The application covers maintenance dredging along approximately 52 miles from the Upper Turning Basin through Galveston Bay to the Gulf entrance channel, with material placed in approved disposal areas including the offshore Galveston Ocean Dredged Material Disposal Site about 3.7 nautical miles from shore. Port Houston would be permitted to use hopper, pipeline, cutterhead, mechanical dredges and bed-levelling machinery to address localized shoaling. The USACE public consultation runs until August 27, with the permit subject to environmental, endangered-species, fish-habitat and Texas coastal-management reviews. The programme is separate from the recently completed Project 11 expansion works and is intended to preserve navigable depth across the widened and deepened waterway.
Context
The maintenance permit application follows the July 23 cost-share agreement for a feasibility study on further deepening the same channel.
