The Sabine-Neches Waterway Deepening Project

Position

The Sabine-Neches Waterway (SNWW): America's Energy Gateway

- SNWW is the #1 US crude oil import port
- SNWW will soon be the #1 US liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal and will host 40% of the nation's LNG import regasification capacity by 2010
- SNWW supports 55% of the nation's strategic oil reserves
- SNWW is home of the nation's #1 commercial military outload port
- SNWW refineries produce 60% of the nation's commercial jet fuel and the majority of US military jet fuel
- SNWW plants refine 11% of America's gasoline
- SNWW is the nation's 4th largest waterway


The Sabine-Neches Waterway is an irreplaceable link in our country's energy and military transportation network. Our waterway links to an extensive pipeline system that supplies communities and businesses across the country.

With nearly $20 billion in new energy-related investments along the waterway, the SNWW urgently needs to upgrade in order to continue to serve its essential and expanding role. The waterway has not been upgraded since 1962.

As a federal waterway, the SNWW needs immediate help from Washington to authorize deepening the waterway to 48 feet. The project is behind schedule and must be included in the next Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) reauthorization bill. This expansion would allow the waterway to accept deep draft tankers, better manage traffic, and better serve the energy needs of our country.

The SNWW also needs immediate help from Washington for funding of on-going maintenance. The SNWW's Operation and Maintenance (O&M) needs were not fully funded in the President's 2009 budget, so please ask the Appropriations Committee to fully fund the Corps of Engineers' O&M funding needs.

For more information, contact the Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce or Randall Reese, General Manager of the Sabine-Neches Navigation District (409) 729.4588

News

• Coast Guard diverted
  Aug 5, 2010 — The Beaumont Enterprise
  ...the Eagle Otome collision and it is due on Sept. 27. "Then we will decide whether a hearing with the pilots is warranted," he said. Two captains with the Sabine Pilots were aboard the Eagle Otome for its upstream trip to the ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) Beaumont refinery. Two pilots are customary for the eight-hour trip from the entry into Sabine Pass to Beaumont. During the Coast Guard hearing, the pilots and the captain of the Eagle Otome, Pallava Shukla, testified the tanker...
• Southeast Texas will learn the value of an educational institution with study on Lamar
  Jul 21, 2010 — The Beaumont Enterprise
  Lamar campus to work on the fuel cell project, Hopper said. He also predicts the overall economic analysis will show Lamar as having a "huge impact" though he had no specific figure in mind. Rich said he asked Perryman to analyze Lamar's economic impact when the Sabine-Neches Navigation District hired Perryman to update the economic contribution of the Sabine-Neches Ship Channel. Rich said assigning an economic value to a local university is becoming a trend.
• Area expertise helps clean up spill
  Jun 27, 2010 — The Beaumont Enterprise
  Texas because the need for the cleanup is tapping into what some area companies do best. Glenn Perritt, an operations manager with CBH Services Inc., in Orange, on Friday was heading to New Orleans to meet with potential new clients. The company already is providing up to about 80 people and a variety of vessels to areas along the Louisiana coastline where cleanup is needed. CBH specializes in waste cleanup, spill technology, boat operations and general labor, Perritt...
• Ta nker hits Rainbow Bridge fender
  Jun 12, 2010 — The Beaumont Enterprise
  ...tank ship heading upriver struck a fender at the base of the Rainbow Bridge Friday afternoon. The U.S. Coast Guard's Marine Safety Unit in Port Arthur will investigate the incident that caused no injuries and no spills into the Sabine- Neches Ship Channel, said Lt. j.g. James Schock. Tugboats were escorting the tanker ship Hero, bearing a Panama flag, upriver to the Sun Oil Terminal in Nederland. "We're not 100 percent sure of what hit the bridge fender," Schock told The...
• Mudmakesmarshmoat
  May 19, 2010 — The Beaumont Enterprise
  Sutherlin, manager of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Lower Neches Wildlife Management Area. Marsh buggies are making mounded levees in the water between Texas 87 and the Entergy (NYSE:ETR) power plant in the Old River Unit of the wildlife area. Soon, silt dredged from the Sabine-Neches Waterway will be pumped into the water. The levees will hold the silt in until it forms the land for the new marsh. "It's going to be ugly," Sutherlin said about the process that...
• Oil threatens vacation plans
  May 16, 2010 — The Beaumont Enterprise
  What if the beaches are closed?" Reiswerg said. "Basically, if something happens in Galveston we will not keep peoples' money -- they will be refunded.
• BRIEF
  Feb 7, 2010 — The Beaumont Enterprise
  ...to wrap exterior pipes by watching her grandfather. The techinique came in handy during last month's frigid cold snap. Oliver, 31, and her friends Tomi Wells, 27, and Janie Price, 46, spent the night before the January freeze knocking on doors and wrapping pipes for Southeast Texans who physically or financially were unable to do so themselves. "We'd wrap a house, then they would ask us to go to their neighbor's house," Oliver said. "We spent all day wrapping pipes."...
• Size of natural gas boom tough to quantify
  Feb 7, 2010 — The Beaumont Enterprise
  And how could LNG shipments on the Sabine Neches Waterway influences it?
• EDITORIAL
  Feb 6, 2010 — The Beaumont Enterprise
  Still, some Port Arthur residents said they did not receive any warning. Some safety officials want to phase out sirens as a means of notifying residents.
• Change in weather, current aids Keith Lake cleanup
  Jan 30, 2010 — The Beaumont Enterprise
  Keith Lake on Wednesday, a thick layer of sludgy crude had pooled in certain areas along the lake's northern shore, staining the marsh grass stems and sending a filmy sheen onto the surface of surrounding waters. But Friday's rain and the change in currents -- as well as, possibly, absorbent booms that had been deployed -- made a big difference in the lake's appearance. While a sheen still lingered and the stained booms told of the water body's recent contamination, the sludgy pools...