Calcasieu Ship Channel | |
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History | |
Construction began | 1922 |
The Calcasieu Ship Channel is a waterway that connects the city of Lake Charles, Louisiana, with the Gulf of Mexico. Its existence allows the Port of Lake Charles, which is more than 30 miles from the Gulf, to be the 10th largest seaport in the United States. The primary use of the channel is the importation of materials for processing in Lake Charles' large refinery industry, including petroleum, liquefied natural gas, and the export of refined products, such as gasoline and chemicals. [1]
The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW), from the Sabine River (Louisiana) to the Calcasieu River, was built between 1913 and 1914 with a width of 40 feet (12 m) and a depth of 5 feet (1.5 m). In 1925 the width was dredged to 100 feet (30 m) wide and 9 feet (2.7 m) deep. Sometime in the 1930's the canal was dredged to 30 feet (9.1 m) deep and called the Lake Charles Deep Water Channel. In 1941 the channel was part of the GIWW and maintained at 12 feet (3.7 m) deep and a width of 125 feet (38 m). Through the GIWW the Sabine and Calcasieu estuaries became co-mingled with saltwater intrusion which resulted in the combined Calcasieu-Sabine Basin. [2] [3]
The ship channel runs along the west side of Calcasieu Lake between the lake and "West Cove". [4] It is a combination of natural lakes, streams, and man-made cuts. [5] The Calcasieu Ship Channel comprises two sections, the "Outer Bar" at 33 miles (29 nmi), 30 miles (26 nmi) pass the seaward state boundary, [6] and "The Inner Channel" at 32 miles (28 nmi) measured from the three mile seaward boundary. [7]
Authority of the United States Army Corps of Engineers and Louisiana to regulate traffic in the ship channel, specifically past the three mile border, was affirmed in court concerning ship channel pilots. [8] Being a busy United States port there are ship studies on the channel [9]
Over the years, as ships have grown larger, the channel has had increasing difficulty in accommodating the larger ships. In June 2009, the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to dredge the channel and bring it up to modern standards [10] of 40 feet (12 m) depth and 400 feet (120 m) bottom width.
By widening and straightening the Calcasieu River (removing the natural Sinuosity), as well as dredging, the Port of Lake Charles has been able to handle larger ships. Cruise ships aside, the channel cannot accommodate the larger ships. The channel jetties extends into the Gulf of Mexico 1.2 miles (1.9 km). [11]
The "Port of Lake Charles began 2024 as the nations 13th busiest port [12] but by May 2024 had reached 10th place. [13]
Cameron Parish is a parish in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 5,617. The parish seat is Cameron. Although it is the largest parish by area in Louisiana, it has the second-smallest population in the state, ahead of only Tensas. Cameron Parish is part of the Lake Charles metropolitan statistical area.
Lake Charles is the fifth-most populous city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the parish seat of Calcasieu Parish, located on Lake Charles, Prien Lake, and the Calcasieu River. Founded in 1861 in Calcasieu Parish, it is a major industrial, cultural, and educational center in the southwest region of the state. As of the 2020 U.S. census, Lake Charles's population was 84,872.
The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) is the portion of the Intracoastal Waterway located along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is a navigable inland waterway running approximately 1,300 mi (2,100 km) from Saint Marks, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas.
Sabine Lake is a bay on the Gulf coasts of Texas and Louisiana, located approximately 90 miles (140 km) east of Houston and 160 miles (260 km) west of Baton Rouge, adjoining the city of Port Arthur. The lake is formed by the confluence of the Neches and Sabine Rivers and connects to the Gulf of Mexico through Sabine Pass. It forms part of the Texas–Louisiana border, falling within Jefferson and Orange Counties in Texas and Cameron Parish, Louisiana.
Galveston Bay is a bay in the western Gulf of Mexico along the upper coast of Texas. It is the seventh-largest estuary in the United States, and the largest of seven major estuaries along the Texas Gulf Coast. It is connected to the Gulf of Mexico and is surrounded by sub-tropical marshes and prairies on the mainland. The water in the bay is a complex mixture of sea water and fresh water, which supports a wide variety of marine life. With a maximum depth of about 10 feet (3 m) and an average depth of only 6 feet (2 m), it is unusually shallow for its size.
The Calcasieu River is a river on the Gulf Coast in southwestern Louisiana. Approximately 200 miles (320 km) long, it drains a largely rural area of forests and bayou country, meandering southward to the Gulf of Mexico. The name "Calcasieu" most likely comes through French from the Atakapa language Katkōsh Yōk, the name of a local Atakapa leader.
The Port of Victoria is a shallow-draft port in Victoria, Texas. It was opened in 1968 by creation of a 35-mile barge canal linking Victoria, Texas to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW).
The Industrial Canal is a 5.5-mile (8.9 km) waterway in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The waterway's proper name, as used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and on NOAA nautical charts, is Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IHNC). The more common "Industrial Canal" name is used locally, both by commercial mariners and by landside residents.
The Houston Ship Channel, in Houston, Texas, is part of the Port of Houston, one of the busiest seaports in the world. The channel is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between Houston-area terminals and the Gulf of Mexico, and it serves an increasing volume of inland barge traffic.
The inland waterways of the United States include more than 25,000 mi (40,000 km) of navigable waters. Much of the commercially important waterways of the United States consist of the Mississippi River System—the Mississippi River and connecting waterways.
The Port of Lake Charles is an industrial port based in the city of Lake Charles, Louisiana, U.S.A. It is a major employer in Lake Charles. It is the twelfth-busiest port in the United States according to the American Association of Port Authorities U.S. Port Ranking by Cargo Tonnage, 2013 report and the 83rd-busiest in the world in terms of tonnage according to the American Association of Port Authorities World Port Rankings 2013 report. According to Benchmarkia's Industrial Park Ranking, Port of Lake Charles is ranked as the fifth-largest industrial park in the world by total area. The Calcasieu Ship Channel provides direct access to the Gulf of Mexico, 34 miles downstream from the city docks. The ship channel intersects the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway just north of Calcasieu Lake. The Ship Channel has a project depth of 40 feet and a bottom width of 400 feet.
The Port of Beaumont is a deep-water port located in Beaumont, Texas near the mouth of the Neches River.
Louisiana Highway 82 (LA 82) is a state highway located in southern Louisiana. It runs 142.87 miles (229.93 km) in a general east–west direction from the Texas state line east of Port Arthur to the Vermilion–Lafayette parish line southwest of Youngsville.
The Schooner Bayou Control Structure is a flood control structure located in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is part of the Mississippi Valley Division, New Orleans District, which encompasses the southern half of the state of Louisiana.
The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lake Borgne Surge Barrier is a storm surge barrier constructed near the confluence of and across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) near New Orleans. The barrier runs generally north-south from a point just east of Michoud Canal on the north bank of the GIWW and just south of the existing Bayou Bienvenue flood control structure.
The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex is a part of the New Orleans Drainage System; it consists of a navigable floodgate, a pumping station, flood walls, sluice gates, foreshore protection, and an earthen levee. The complex was designed to reduce risk for residences and businesses in the project area from a storm surge associated with a tropical event, with an intensity that has a one percent chance of occurring in any given year. This project was operated for the first time on August 29, 2012, in response to Hurricane Isaac.
The Sabine–Neches Waterway is located in southeast Texas and Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, United States. The waterway includes parts of the Neches River, Sabine River, Sabine Lake, and Taylor Bayou. The waterway ranks as third-busiest waterway in the U.S. in terms of cargo tonnage, according to the American Association of Port Authorities. It also ranks as the top bulk liquid cargo waterway, the top U.S. crude-oil importer, and is projected to become the largest LNG exporter in the United States. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway crosses the waterway near Port Arthur.
The Jefferson Seaway was a proposed deep-draft ship channel to be created in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, that would establish a route between the Mississippi River at Westwego and the Gulf of Mexico near Grand Isle. The Mississippi River provided the only deep-water access to New Orleans and its neighboring ports. In the mid-20th century, the creation of alternate routes was considered, including the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MR-GO), which was ultimately selected, funded and constructed. The Jefferson Seaway, sometimes referred to as the Arrow to the Americas, the Mississippi Valley Seaway Canal, the Tidewater Ship Canal and the Barataria Canal, was also under consideration but ultimately was never constructed as a deep-draft channel.
The U.S. state of Texas has a series of estuaries along its coast on the Gulf of Mexico, most of them bounded by the Texas barrier islands. Estuaries are coastal bodies of water in which freshwater from rivers mixes with saltwater from the sea. Twenty-one drainage basins terminate along the Texas coastline, forming a chain of seven major and five minor estuaries: listed from southwest to northeast, these are the Rio Grande Estuary, Laguna Madre, the Nueces Estuary, the Mission–Aransas Estuary, the Guadalupe Estuary, the Colorado–Lavaca Estuary, East Matagorda Bay, the San Bernard River and Cedar Lakes Estuary, the Brazos River Estuary, Christmas Bay, the Trinity–San Jacinto Estuary, and the Sabine–Neches Estuary. Each estuary is named for its one or two chief contributing rivers, excepting Laguna Madre, East Matagorda Bay, and Christmas Bay, which have no major river sources. The estuaries are also sometimes referred to by the names of their respective primary or central water bodies, though each also includes smaller secondary bays, inlets, or other marginal water bodies.