FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  
CONTACT:  Katie Chimenti, 281-326-3343
                    Nancy Edmonson 281-471-4567

December 11, 2002

Spillman's Island Beats Bayport

    New road construction, railroad spurs, and other special requirements would produce significantly higher costs for taxpayers if the Port of Houston Authority undertook container port development at Bayport rather than at Spillman's Island, according to a newly released analysis of the two sites. This conflicts directly with Port claims that that the Spillman's Island alternative site is not an economic proposition.

     Transportation analyst Nancy Edmonson recently compared the cost factors unique to Bayport and to Spillman's Island. Using projections supplied by the Port of Houston Authority itself, she identified more than $209 million in extra costs to taxpayers if a container port were developed at Bayport. Costs unique to Spillman's Island were much lower. Her analysis was conducted for the Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association, and the full report can be viewed on the GBCPA website at www.gbcpa.org.

     The largest single set of extra costs at Bayport, almost $117 million, would be for roadway work needed to accommodate an additional 5,000 trucks per day on Highway 146. This amount involves intersection upgrades and does not include improvements likely to be needed on the main stem of Highway 146; such work would mean yet further costs, Edmonson notes.

     The next largest amount is for new railroad lines--more than $60 million. Spillman's Island, by contrast, would need little expenditure on rail and roadways because it adjoins the existing container port at Barbour's Cut, where significant public funds have already been invested in the infrastructure.

     "While the tracks south to Bayport are single tracks, the lines to Barbour's Cut were double-tracked a few years ago and could serve Spillman's Island," Edmonson notes. On the highways, she says, "Truck traffic from Spillman's Island would have direct access to SH 225, to which significant capacity was added about five years ago, while truck traffic from Bayport would travel on the already overburdened SH 146."

     The third major category of extra costs at Bayport involves nearly $25 million in mitigation required because Bayport is so close to residential areas, and because the Port would have to compensate for losses of coastal prairie and wetland habitat. Finally, building a mega-container port at Bayport involves purchasing of five sizable parcels of land, costing  nearly $5 million. And ownership of these lands by the Port, which pays no property tax, would mean at least $2.6 million in lost tax revenue to Harris County, local cities, and the Clear Creek Independent School District.

     In contrast, Spillman's Island is an active dredge spoil site directly fronting the Houston Ship Channel. It is remote from residential areas, reducing impacts on surrounding communities. Building on dredge spoil would mean no impacts on environmentally sensitive wetland and upland habitats, says Edmonson in her report. Thus developing a container port at Spillman's Island would  at once increase efficiencies for the Port and avoid the complex mitigation required at Bayport.

     Despite these factors, the Port rejected Spillman's Island as an alternative early on, claiming that the cost of stabilizing the site would be $600,000 per acre. More recently, in an October 2002 letter to State Representative John Davis, the Port has dropped its estimates to a range of $297,000 to $428,000 per acre. For comparison, Edmonson notes that developers of a container terminal at Shoal Point in Texas City--also on an active dredge spoil site--have projected stabilization costs at only $90,000 per acre.

     The acreage is also open to question. As proposed, the Bayport facility would occupy more than 1,000 acres. But a container port planned for Texas City covers 500 acres, and Seattle has recently opened a major container terminal on only 200 acres. Both the Texas City and Seattle projects are designed for almost the same throughput of cargo containers as at Bayport. Edmonson points out that one reason for the 1,000-acre footprint in the Bayport proposal is inclusion of a cruise terminal, and she challenges this in the report.

     "There is no reason that a cruise terminal--if needed at all--must or even should be built adjacent to the container terminal. In fact, Ricardo Fernandez of Indigo Service Corporation--a nationally recognized cruise terminal and port consultant--argues that cruise and container facilities should not be co-located due to national security concerns," said Edmonson.

     Further, the Port has indicated that about 100 acres of Spillman's Island would not need stabilization. The Port assumed in a September 2002 letter to John Davis that only 888 acres on Spillman's Island would need to be stabilized for a 1,000-acre terminal. Edmonson therefore projected the Spillman's Island stabilization costs for 400 acres--a container port with no cruise terminal and covering 500 acres, as at Shoal Point, of which 100 acres would not need stabilization work.

     At the Port's current maximum estimate of $428,000 an acre, it would cost $171 million to stabilize 400 acres of Spillman's Island. This is substantially less than the $209 million in known additional costs at Bayport. At the Port's lower-end estimate of $297,000 an acre, the cost of stabilizing 400 acres on Spillman's Island would drop to $148.5 million. And if costs approach the $90,000 per acre envisioned at Shoal Point, the cost of stabilizing Spillman's Island would drop below $100 million.

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