Port Of Beaumont News

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) awarded nearly $12 million in grants to eight marine highway projects across the nation under the United States Marine Highway Program (USMHP). The funding will improve the movement of goods along our navigable waterways and expand existing waterborne freight services in Alaska, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin, which will strengthen supply chains and ultimately cut costs for consumers.“Our country has always relied on American waterways to get vital goods where they need to go,” said U.S.

The Port of Beaumont announced its Board of Commissioners have approved a $57.3 million construction bid for a project aimed at increasing the port’s general cargo handling capacity by more than 15%. Phase II of the Main Street Terminal 1 project, awarded to McCarthy Building Companies, includes demolition of a failed dock structure and construction of a new state-of-the-art general cargo dock. The Main Street Terminal 1 project, funded in part by 2017 General Obligation Bonds, a 2019 U.S. DOT BUILD grant, and Port revenues, is expected to be complete by June 2024.

“Fireboats are basically an insurance policy.” -Meeting minutes, Southeast Texas Waterways Advisory Council (SETWAC).Developments in America’s coastal ports are causing officials to closely review maritime safety operations and equipment. Fireboats draw a lot of attention. The reference here is to big fireboats – 40-50 feet, crewed by specially trained firefighters, outfitted with the equipment required to confront and take on a range of waterway emergencies. [CBRN is a frequent acronym used with these fireboats: Chemical…

On July 3, 2018, the Port of Beaumont formalized the purchase of the former Chicago Bridge & Iron fabrication facility located at 850 Pine Street, Beaumont, Texas for $8.25 million. To facilitate the growth of the property, the Port of Beaumont has entered into a public-private partnership with Allegiant Industrial Island Park, LLC. Initial plans for the property, to be named Port of Beaumont Allegiant Island Park, include rehabilitation of the fabrication facility and paint shop, full rebuild of the docks, and upgrades to all utilities.

While crude deliveries by larger ships to Beaumont in Texas remain restricted after Hurricane Harvey, a workaround using pipelines can supply Exxon Mobil's refinery there, shipping sources said. Silt and clay lingering in the Port of Beaumont still threaten to entrap large ships, two weeks after Hurricane Harvey ravaged Texas, but pipelines are available to move crude up to refineries there from nearby terminals which are less affected by sediment. Beaumont's port has been closed to ship traffic over 26 feet (8 meters) since Sept. 9 by the U.S. Coast Guard, because of shoaling - sediment or sand that washes up on the bottom of the waterway and hampers shipping traffic.

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao welcomed the newest vessel to the Maritime Security Program (MSP) in the port of Beaumont, Texas. Renamed the M/V Liberty Passion, it is the third ship owned by Liberty Global Logistics to join the MSP fleet. “Today we are celebrating a public-private partnership that is strengthening America’s Merchant Marine, as well as America’s Armed Forces,” said Secretary Chao. “U.S.-flagged vessels are a critical component in our domestic commerce, moving $467 billion worth of goods between ports in the U.S.

2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the Port of Beaumont, a major deepwater port in Southeast Texas. A series of celebrations and public events began October 20th, when the Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce presented the port with its Spindletop Award for outstanding corporate citizenship. A record crowd of 800 people were on hand for the 112th annual Chamber meeting, where keynote speaker, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, saluted the port for 100 years of service. Port officials have planned a number of events over the next six months to commemorate the Centennial.

New Orleans builds enviable cruise traffic on top of a carefully crafted business plan. It may surprise you to learn that, on the lower Mississippi River, cruise traffic now accounts for over one fifth of all revenue at the Port of New Orleans, a major cargo hub. With recently modernized terminals, able to handle big ships, the Crescent City last year accommodated over a million cruise passengers, setting its fourth straight record. How they did it is perhaps more impressive than what they have created…

America is leading the global effort to end the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. And part of the Obama Administration's whole-of-government response has included some recent heavy lifting by two ships from the Maritime Administration's (MARAD) Ready Reserve Force, the M/V Cape Rise and the M/V Cape Wrath. Today, the volunteer civilian mariners crewing the Cape Rise and Cape Wrath are home for the holidays. Last month, the two vessels – the Cape Rise at the Port of Beaumont, Texas, and the Cape Wrath at the Port of Jacksonville, Fla.

Port industry veteran Don Allee will assume control of the Port’s Cruise and Tourism Division in January, following the retirement of current Director J. Robert Jumonville. Jumonville, who will retire in January after 25 years at the Port, oversaw the planning and construction of all three Julia St. Cruise Terminals, including the present consolidation of the two terminals into one modern terminal completed in 2011. Jumonville was also instrumental in the design and construction of the Erato Street Cruise Terminal and Parking Garage Complex…

The U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, which lays out the way the United States improves and maintains vital ports and waterways. The bill authorizes construction of the proposed Sabine-Neches Waterway channel improvement project. (The waterway is a set of interlocking river channels and canals extending from the Gulf of Mexico to Port Arthur, Beaumont, and Orange, Texas). The proposed project would deepen the…

U.S. Reps Janice Hahn & Ted Poe to Accept AAPA’s ‘Port Person of Year’ Award at March 19 Event in D.C.; AAPA’s 2013 ‘Spring Conference’ to focus on key seaport priorities: infrastructure, security, trade. U.S. Representatives Janice Hahn (D-CA) and Ted Poe (R-TX) will be honored on March 19 as the American Association of Port Authorities’ (AAPA) 2013 “Port Persons of the Year” during the association’s annual Spring Conference event, March 18-19, at The Renaissance Washington, DC Downtown Hotel.

U.S. Coast Guard units operating in the Houston - Galveston area of responsibility have as of 4 p.m. Tuesday processed 51 reports of pollution and repaired or replaced 40 percent of critical aids to navigation damaged or missing in the wake of Hurricane Ike.Of the 51 pollution reports, 15 incidents require active cleanup, 14 require passive action and 22 require no further action by the Coast Guard. The reports cover a range of incidents including the discharge of petroleum products from storage tanks that have been damaged and/or are submerged in flood waters, the discharge of fuel from submerged machinery and sunken or damaged vessels in marinas, and natural gas leaks. A pipeline in , leaking natural gas from a valve currently under six feet of water.

Port workers, longshoremen, truckers and others at the Port of Oakland will become the first in the region to enroll in the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program. The program's goal is to ensure that any individual who has unescorted access to secure areas of port facilities and vessels has received a thorough background check and is not a security threat. Thousands of workers are expected to enroll over the coming months at the Port of Oakland and Port of San Francisco, which begins enrollment spring 2008. Nationwide, more than 1 million workers with unescorted access to secure areas will apply during the rest of 2007 and 2008.

The Coast Guard recently slapped the Port of Beaumont with $16,000 in fines for three incidents of security breaches. All three incidents, considered violations of the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, occurred during the last year, Beaumont Enterprise reported. Citing port security, details of how the three violations occurred were at a minimum. The Maritime Transportation Security Act outlines security procedures ports must follow, depending on the terror threat level at a given time. The act includes measures such as securing dangerous materials, controlling access to facilities and adequately screening visitors. Federal law specifies fine amounts.

Ship deliveries to most of the Sabine-Neches Waterway were stalled again Wednesday as salvage crews removed concrete lost by a barge. The accident Tuesday left 94 piles, each weighing about the same as a tractor-trailer at 32,110 pounds, in the ship channel. A crane is picking up the heaps one by one, forcing the ship channel's closure to large vessels for days, said U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Ian Bird. Tugboats and barges were allowed into the waterway starting Tuesday evening, he said. Seven crude oil tankers are waiting to enter and 11 others are tied up by the restrictions. Motiva Enterprises is expecting a shipment today of crude, but the refinery keeps enough stock in case of delivery delays, said spokeswoman Sue Parsley.

e-Smart Technologies, Inc. announced that its Homeland Defense, Inc., affiliate has reached an agreement with the Port of Beaumont to install the Company's Biometric Verification - Homeland Defense System (BV-HDS(tm)) together with a number of the Company's subsystems including but not limited to the Super Smart Card(tm) identity verification and sure credentialing subsystem, the Robotic Eye(tm) video surveillance and emergency response subsystem and the AutoTrafficCop(tm) port protection subsystem. This agreement is the result of the port security concerns expressed by Texas Congressman Nick Lampson (D - Beaumont) and the cooperation of the Board of Commissioners of the Port of Beaumont as represented by its Executive Director, Chris Fisher, and the diligent work of Ms.

Coast Guard crews from the CGC Cobia and a Marine Safety Office Port Arthur, Texas, small boat are performing escort duties today for the USNS Britton, a military cargo vessel, at the port of Beaumont, Texas, as it relocates military resources in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. The crews are responsible for enforcing the Naval Vessel Protection Zone in the port, which requires all vessels to keep a distance of 100 yards from all naval vessels and operate at minimum speeds when within 500 yards of a naval vessel. The United States is repositioning some of its military resources as required to support the global war on terrorism and to prepare for future contingencies as may be directed.

ST. LOUIS - More than 4,000 Coast Guardsmen continue to save lives and assess the damage to waterways, aids to navigation, the environment and maritime transportation system infrastructure in the wake of Hurricane Rita. To date, the Coast Guard has rescued 120 people imperiled by flood waters and has medically evacuated two others from hospitals in the hurricane-impacted area. Coast Guard rescuers continue to work closely with local and state officials as well as the Department of Defense, to determine the number of people in need of rescue and to ensure help is delivered as swiftly as possible. Two Disaster Response Units (DRUs) were dispatched to the Lake Livingston, Texas, area while three more DRUs were deployed to Port Arthur, Texas, to aid in relief efforts.