Port Grades Itself

Responding to a national study that gave it a failing grade in its overall operations, the Port of Houston Authority was quick to publish its own set of grades--rating itself "excellent" in all respects.
    "This is a farce," said Mayor Nancy Edmonson of Shoreacres. "People who live near the Port's facilities know all about the agency's high-handed methods and the damage it has done to communities. Port spin doesn't change the fact of the Port of Houston's deplorable record." Shoreacres lies close to the Barbour's Cut container terminal and even closer to Bayport, site of a proposed new container port.
    The Port Authority's self-awarded grades appeared in a half-page advertisement in the Houston Chronicle (March 24), two days after the release of a stinging critique in the Natural Resources Defense Council report Harboring Pollution: The Dirty Truth about U.S. Ports. The Port Authority also held a press conference for damage control. The worst problems identified in the study involved Port land use practices and community relations; it scored F's for both.
    "We consider the Port Authority guilty of land abuse rather than use, and of community manipulation rather than relations," said Edmonson. "That's why we have gone to court over its Bayport proposal."
    The City of Shoreacres and a coalition of other local cities and conservation groups, including the Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association, have filed suit in federal and state court challenging the Bayport plan. The federal case is scheduled to be heard on April 20 and the state case on May 6.