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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  
CONTACT:  Nancy Edmonson 281-471-4567
                    Natalie  O'Neill 281-326-1933

October 23, 2002

Crescendo for Supplemental DEIS on Bayport

Calls are intensifying for a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed container terminal at Bayport because of inadequate opportunities for the public to assess the impacts this huge development would have on public safety and surrounding communities.

     The Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association has formally notified Colonel Leonard Waterworth of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that "full disclosure" about the proposed project has not occurred to date, and that a Supplemental DEIS is therefore required.  GBCPA is encouraging opponents of this location for port development to step up the pressure with a new round of letters to the Corps requesting an SDEIS.

     "An obvious option for the Corps is to convert the Final EIS now being prepared for release early next year into a Supplemental DEIS instead," said GBCPA Chair Jim Blackburn, "and for that Supplemental DEIS to be circulated for public review and comment."

     In comments on the Bayport DEIS at the large public meeting in the George R. Brown Convention Center last December, many people called for a Supplemental DEIS on the grounds of numerous inadequacies in the DEIS as it was published. Those problems remain.

    In addition, a major reason why a Supplemental DEIS is now needed is that since the close of the DEIS public comment period in March, the Port of Houston Authority has twice revised its permit application.  The first revision involves changes in wetlands acreages and noise mitigation, and the second involves wetlands mitigation and the cruise terminal.

     "The public should have been given a chance to see the impact of these revisions in a Supplemental DEIS and then comment upon the Corps' analysis of these changes. That never happened. It simply is not fair for the Port to be able to alter its project and for us not to have a chance to comment upon the impact of those changes," Blackburn told Waterworth.

     Moreover, Blackburn said, there is compelling new information. As Congressman Nick Lampson and others have indicated, container ports raise national security issues, but these issues were not discussed in the DEIS. Alternative locations and alternative designs are important from a national security standpoint and now need to be reconsidered in light of the need for such ports to be distant from residential areas.

     A third reason that a Supplemental DEIS is needed involves the San Jacinto Rail project, which literally intersects with the Bayport plan, so that they constitute cumulative actions.  The two projects cover some of the same geography, both impacting wetlands and land use in southeast Harris County.

     Alone, any one of these factors could be reason enough to warrant an SDEIS in order to ensure full disclosure and public discussion. "Taken together, they make it clear that an SDEIS on Bayport is required, " Blackburn said.

     Letters requesting a Supplemental DEIS on the proposed Bayport project should be addressed to Col. Leonard D. Waterworth, District Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District, P.O. Box 1229, Galveston, Texas 77553-1229.

Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association
P.O. Box 323, Seabrook, Texas 77586
Phone: 281-326-3343
Website: www.gbcpa.org
E-mail:  gbcpa@gbcpa.org