City of Taylor Lake Village

500 Kirby Blvd.

Taylor Lake Village, Texas 77586

Phone: 281-326-2843

City of Shoreacres
601 Shoreacres Blvd.
Shoreacres, Texas 77571
Phone: 281-471-2244

___________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 27, 2003
CONTACT: Natalie O'Neill, Mayor, Taylor Lake Village, 281-326-2843
Nancy Edmonson, Mayor, Shoreacres, 281-471-2244

The Truth under the Spoil

Costs to stabilize Spilman's Island for a container port would be at least 50 percent lower than the lowest figures yet given by the Port of Houston Authority for stabilizing the site, according to an independent evaluation released by the Harris County Public Infrastructure Department on May 16.
    "These findings suggest a possible way for the Port to escape from the deadlock on Bayport," said Natalie O'Neill, Mayor of Taylor Lake Village. "A feasible alternative site means there is an opportunity for a win-win situation. Because Spilman¹s Island is an alternative in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act allow the Corps of Engineers to permit Spilman¹s based on the current EIS, all the Port has to do is change the application."
    Spilman's Island covers some 900 acres in the Houston Ship Channel. It is a dredge spoil disposal area, where unconsolidated material would need stabilization to prepare the site for port construction. Results of the new study by the engineering company S&ME, Inc. show an average stabilization cost of $160,000 per acre for stabilization over two years, compared the Port's current estimate of $258,750 per acre, which is 58 percent higher.
    "Significantly, the assumptions used throughout the new assessment are extremely conservative," said Nancy Edmonson, Mayor of Shoreacres. "Wherever there was a choice of costs to be included, S&ME used the higher ones."

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Truth under the Spoil   2 of 3

    "For example, the price of fill material in Texas generally ranges from $3.00 to $5.00 per cubic yard for large quantities, but the figure used here was $5.50 per cubic yard. This means the S&ME results probably overestimate the costs involved by a considerable margin," said Edmonson.
    The Port rejected Spilman's Island as an alternative early in the site selection process, claiming that the cost of stabilizing it would be $610,458 per acre. Repeated challenges to this assessment provoked new figures from the Port. In an October 2002 letter to State Representative John Davis, the Port dropped its estimates to a range of $297,000 to $428,000 per acre.
    But project plans for container terminals at Shoal Point in Texas City and Wando Terminal in North Carolina --also on an active dredge spoil sites--estimated stabilization costs at only $90,000 per acre. Hence opponents continued to argue for reassessment of the geotechnical data available for Spilman's Island.
    County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia of Precinct 2, keeping her promise to be our "watchdog," responded to pressure from her constituents. She requested Art Storey of the Harris County Public Infrastructure Department to commission an independent evaluation because cost estimates provided by the Port of Houston Authority continued to be so sharply challenged.
    S&ME of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, conducted the work using same geotechnical sampling data as was used by the Port. The company's qualifications include similar assessments of dredge spoil stabilization procedures for four other large-scale port projects, and a series of smaller areas.

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 Truth under the Spoil   3 of 3

    Contrary to the Port's continued statements that Spilman's Island is an unbuildable soup bowl, the S&ME report notes that overall, subsurface conditions at Spilman's island appeared somewhat better than at other dredge spoil disposal sites where the company has worked. It further notes that additional savings would be possible if the site were stabilized in phases and not all at once, because the same surcharge material could be reused on different sectors over time.
    Another possible avenue for savings (not assumed in the S&ME projections) is that surcharge dirt could be resold once its role in stabilization was complete.  "Across the board, the S&ME study adopts conservative assumptions that result in higher end cost estimates," said Edmonson.
    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently issued a permit authorizing construction of Texas City's container port at Shoal Point. In effect, this represents acknowledgment that this is the least environmentally damaging potential site on Galveston Bay.
    Like Shoal Point, Spilman's Island is remote from residential areas, greatly reducing impacts on surrounding communities. It adjoins Houston's existing container terminal at Barbour's Cut, meaning that a new container terminal could take advantage of existing road and rail infrastructure. Building on dredge spoil would involve no impacts on environmentally sensitive wetlands and coastal prairie.

    Thus developing a container port at Spilman's Island would allow the Port of Houston Authority to avoid the complex environmental mitigation that would be required to compensate for habitat losses at Bayport. It would also avoid the need to build noise and visual barriers to mitigate for negative impacts on residential areas. The Corps' Final EIS shows that in 2000, there were 23,702 residents living in the core Bayport area.
    "We know there are more than 50,000 people living within three miles of it now. If the Port truly wants to be a good neighbor, they will reconsider using their industrial site. Same jobs--fewer impacts," said O'Neill.

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