Corps Gets Funds For Channel To Port Mansfield

The Galveston Engineer District reported September 12 that it has received funding to conduct maintenance dredging at the Channel to Port Mansfield navigation project.

The Channel to Port Mansfield navigation project consists of a 15-foot-deep by 125-foot-wide by 12.9-mile-long shallow-draft channel, extending from the Gulf of Mexico through a jetted inlet to a turning basin at Port Mansfield.

Not In Budget
The project was not included within the president’s budget for FY 2019, but Congress has provided supplemental funding to be used for maintenance dredging in FY 2019. Since 2000, the channel has been dredged through five separate contracts, typically utilizing supplemental funding set aside in response to coastal storm impacts.

This supplemental funding will be used, through multiple contracts, to dredge the Channel to Port Mansfield to its authorized depth. The first contract will provide an 8 foot channel from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) Intersection to the Port Mansfield main basin to relieve critical shoaling and is anticipated to begin as early as fall of 2018.

“The additional contracts will include dredging the entrance and main channels of Channel to Port Mansfield to authorized dimensions in conjunction with environmental windows,” said Ashton Burgin, operations manager for the Galveston District “This work will likely commence in fall of 2019 and conclude by March 2020, or sooner.”