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Houston Ship Channel

February 16, 2024

The Houston Ship Channel, in Houston, Texas, is part of the Port of Houston, one of the busiest seaports in the world.[1] The channel is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between Houston-area terminals and the Gulf of Mexico, and it serves an increasing volume of inland barge traffic.

The Buffalo Bayou portion of the Houston Ship Channel

Overview edit

 
San Jacinto River in Channel - inset (white line top left) magnified as bottom photo showing the Texas and San Jacinto Monument

The channel is a widened and deepened natural watercourse created by dredging Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay.[2] The channel's upstream terminus lies about four miles east of downtown Houston, at the Turning Basin, with its downstream terminus at a gateway to the Gulf of Mexico, between Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula.[3] Major products, such as petrochemicals and Midwestern grain, are transported in bulk together with general cargo. The original watercourse for the channel, Buffalo Bayou, has its headwaters 30 miles (48 km) to the west of the city of Houston. The navigational head of the channel, the most upstream point to which general cargo ships can travel, is at Turning Basin in east Houston.[4]

The channel has numerous terminals and berthing locations along Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay. The major public terminals include Turning Basin, Barbours Cut, and Bayport. Many private docks are there as well, including the ExxonMobil Baytown Complex and the Deer Park Complex.[5][6]

The channel, occasionally widened and deepened to accommodate ever-larger ships, is 530 feet (160 m) wide by 45 feet (14 m) deep by 50 miles (80 km) long.[1] The islands in the ship channel are part of the ongoing widening and deepening project. The islands are formed from soil pulled up by dredging, and the salt marshes and bird islands are part of the Houston Port Authority's beneficial use and environmental mitigation responsibilities.[1]

The channel has five vehicle crossings: Washburn Tunnel, Sidney Sherman Bridge, Sam Houston Ship Channel Bridge, popularly known as the Beltway 8 Bridge. Two Dollar bridge is another local nickname; Fred Hartman Bridge connecting La Porte and Baytown, Texas; and Lynchburg Ferry.

History edit

 
Photo of the Houston Ship Channel in 1913

John Richardson Harris platted the town of Harrisburg, Texas on Buffalo Bayou at the mouth of Brays Bayou in 1826. He established a steam mill there, while making Harrisburg into a logistical center for the Austin's Colony. He plied his schooner The Rights of Man through the waters of Galveston Bay and Buffalo Bayou, importing supplies from the United States, and exporting cotton and hides. However, fewer people settled Buffalo Bayou than the fertile Brazos Valley, so Harrisburg remained a remote overland location from the critical mass of farmlands: about 20 miles from Fort Bend, Texas and about 40 miles from San Felipe de Austin, Texas. Travelling the Brazos River presented several hazards, most of all, its shifting, shallow sandbars at its mouth. Despite several interventions, the river remained hostile to navigation.[7] Nicholas Clopper acquired land downstream from Harrisburg, the eponymously named Clopper's Point. He recruited six men from Ohio to work as traders, who sailed the schooner Little Zoe from Cincinnati laden with supplies such as flour and spices, nails and other hardware, and whiskey and tobacco. Two of these hires were his sons, Edward and Joseph Clopper. They recorded their travels in a journal, reporting several hazards of Galveston Bay in route to Buffalo Bayou. They ran Little Zoe aground on Galveston Island and later observed two wrecked ships in the bay. They encountered the shallow Red Fish Bar, which they passed while dragging over it.[8]

The channel has been used to move goods to the sea since at least 1836. Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay were dredged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to accommodate larger ships. In the wake of the 1900 Galveston hurricane, the inland Port of Houston was seen as a safer long-term option, and planning for a larger ship channel began.[9] By the mid 1900s the Port of Houston had established itself as the leading port in Texas, eclipsing the natural harbors at Galveston and Texas City.[10] The Turning Basin terminal in Harrisburg (now part of Houston) became the port's largest shipping point.

 
Postcard of the Houston Ship Channel, undated

On January 10, 1910, residents of Harris County voted 16 to 1 to fund dredging the Houston ship channel to a depth of 25 feet for the amount of $1,250,000, which was then matched by federal funds. On June 14, 1914 the first deepwater ship, steamship Satilla, arrived at the port of Houston, establishing steamboat service between New York City and Houston. On November 10, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson opened the Houston Ship Channel, part of the Port of Houston.[11] The onset of World War I and the first mechanized war's thirst for oil greatly increased use of the ship channel.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers increased the depth of the channel from 25 to 30 feet in 1922.[12]

In 1933, the United States Department of War and the United States House Committee on Rivers and Harbors approved a plan to increase the depth of the channel from 30 to 34 feet and widen the Galveston Bay section from 250 to 400 feet. The Public Works Administration provided $2,800,000 dollars for the project, which was completed in late 1935.[13]

The proximity to Texas oilfields led to the establishment of numerous petrochemical refineries along the waterway, such as the ExxonMobil Baytown installation on the eastern bank of the San Jacinto River. Now the channel and surrounding area support the second-largest petrochemical complex in the world.[14]

While much of the Houston Ship Channel is associated with heavy industry, two icons of Texas history are also located along its length. The USS Texas (BB-35) saw service during both world wars, and is the oldest remaining example of a dreadnought-era battleship in existence.[15] The nearby San Jacinto Monument commemorates the Battle of San Jacinto (1836) in which Texas won its independence from Mexico.

The US Army's San Jacinto Ordnance Depot was located on the channel from 1941–1964.[16]

During World War II, two large shipyards produced side-by-side at the confluence of Greens Bayou: Todd Houston Shipbuilding built mostly Liberty Ships and Brown Shipbuilding built a substantial number of destroyer escorts, submarine chasers and amphibious landing craft.

Currently, the channel is dredged to a depth of 43–45 feet. The channel was designated a National Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in 1987.[14]

The "Texas chicken" maneuver [17] is known to mariners who regularly navigate large vessels on the Houston Ship Channel.

Pollution edit

 
Lone Star Flag, flying on the Houston Ship Channel tour boat, on April 2, 2016.

On December 25, 2007, the Houston Ship Channel was featured on the CNN Special, Planet in Peril, as a potential polluter of nearby neighborhoods. That year, the University of Texas released a study suggesting that children living within 2 miles (3.2 km) of the Houston Ship Channel were 56% more likely to become sick with leukemia than the national average.[18]

On March 22, 2014, a barge carrying nearly a million gallons of marine fuel oil collided with another ship in the Houston Ship Channel, causing the contents of one of the barge's 168,000-gallon tanks to leak into Galveston Bay.[19]

Gallery edit

  •  
    Drawing of ship at port 1859
  •  
    Drawing of ship at port 1859
  •  
    The Houston Ship Channel during its first opening in 1915
  •  
    Houston Ship Channel and foot of Main Street, Houston, Texas (postcard, circa 1910)
  •  
    Yachts in the Houston Turning Basin, Houston (postcard, circa 1911)
  •  
    Ship Turning Basin, Buffalo River, Houston (postcard, circa 1914-1924)
  •  
    Cotton on the ship channel, Houston (circa, 1914)
  •  
    Mosaic tile mural at the Houston Ship Channel Visitor's Center - 2016
  •  
    Fireboat Howard T. Tellepsen in the Houston Channel (2006)
  •  
    USS Texas museum is in the Houston Ship Channel

See also edit

References edit

  • . NASA Earth Observatory. Archived from the original on 2006-10-01. Retrieved 2006-05-01.
  1. ^ a b c . U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District. December 2005. Archived from the original on January 9, 2009.
  2. ^ . The Port of Houston Authority. Archived from the original on 13 June 2008. Retrieved 9 September 2009.
  3. ^ Sibley, Marilyn McAdams (1968). The Port of Houston: A History. Austin: University of Texas Press. p. 3.
  4. ^ . Port of Houston Authority. Archived from the original on 18 February 2010. Retrieved 9 February 2010.
  5. ^ "DHR05: HRD for Competitive Advantage: Assignment I". All India Management Association. Retrieved 9 Feb 2010.
  6. ^ Aslam, Abid (7 Jan 2008). . Inter Press Service News Agency. Archived from the original on 2008-05-31.
  7. ^ Sibley (1968), pp. 15–17.
  8. ^ Sibley (1968), pp. 17–19.
  9. ^ Manny Fernandez and Richard Fausset, "A Storm Forces Houston, the Limitless City, to Consider Its Limits", The New York Times, 30 August 2017. Accessed 31 August 2017.
  10. ^ Diana J. Kleiner, "GALVESTON COUNTY," Handbook of Texas Online, accessed August 30, 2014. Uploaded on September 19, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
  11. ^ Houston History: INDUSTRY FOR WAR AND PEACE (1910-1920).
  12. ^ Report of the Chief of Engineers U.S. Army 1922
  13. ^ "A Detailed Description of the Port". Houston Port Book. May, 1935, pg 19.
  14. ^ a b "Houston Ship Channel". American Society of Civil Engineers. Retrieved January 29, 2022.
  15. ^ Battleship Texas State Historic Site. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Accessed August 30, 2014.
  16. ^ Carter Barcus, "SAN JACINTO ORDNANCE DEPOT," Handbook of Texas Online, accessed August 30, 2014. Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
  17. ^ NTSB, "Collision of the Tankship Elka Apollon With the Containership MSC Nederland Houston Ship Channel, Upper Galveston Bay, Texas October 29, 2011" page 20
  18. ^ . University of Texas School of Public Health. Archived from the original on 2009-09-09. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
  19. ^ The Associated Press (March 23, 2014). "Oil Spill Cleanup Impedes Major Texas Ship Channel". NPR.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Houston Ship Channel.
  • Houston Ship Channel from the Handbook of Texas Online
  • Time-lapse video of a barge navigating a length of the Houston Ship Channel at night
  • See historical photographs of the Houston Ship Channel, the Houston community, and more at the

29°42′30″N 95°00′18″W / 29.70833°N 95.00500°W / 29.70833; -95.00500

February 16, 2024
houston, ship, channel, houston, texas, part, port, houston, busiest, seaports, world, channel, conduit, ocean, going, vessels, between, houston, area, terminals, gulf, mexico, serves, increasing, volume, inland, barge, traffic, buffalo, bayou, portion, conten. The Houston Ship Channel in Houston Texas is part of the Port of Houston one of the busiest seaports in the world 1 The channel is the conduit for ocean going vessels between Houston area terminals and the Gulf of Mexico and it serves an increasing volume of inland barge traffic The Buffalo Bayou portion of the Houston Ship Channel Contents 1 Overview 2 History 3 Pollution 4 Gallery 5 See also 6 References 7 External linksOverview edit nbsp San Jacinto River in Channel inset white line top left magnified as bottom photo showing the Texas and San Jacinto MonumentThe channel is a widened and deepened natural watercourse created by dredging Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay 2 The channel s upstream terminus lies about four miles east of downtown Houston at the Turning Basin with its downstream terminus at a gateway to the Gulf of Mexico between Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula 3 Major products such as petrochemicals and Midwestern grain are transported in bulk together with general cargo The original watercourse for the channel Buffalo Bayou has its headwaters 30 miles 48 km to the west of the city of Houston The navigational head of the channel the most upstream point to which general cargo ships can travel is at Turning Basin in east Houston 4 The channel has numerous terminals and berthing locations along Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay The major public terminals include Turning Basin Barbours Cut and Bayport Many private docks are there as well including the ExxonMobil Baytown Complex and the Deer Park Complex 5 6 The channel occasionally widened and deepened to accommodate ever larger ships is 530 feet 160 m wide by 45 feet 14 m deep by 50 miles 80 km long 1 The islands in the ship channel are part of the ongoing widening and deepening project The islands are formed from soil pulled up by dredging and the salt marshes and bird islands are part of the Houston Port Authority s beneficial use and environmental mitigation responsibilities 1 The channel has five vehicle crossings Washburn Tunnel Sidney Sherman Bridge Sam Houston Ship Channel Bridge popularly known as the Beltway 8 Bridge Two Dollar bridge is another local nickname Fred Hartman Bridge connecting La Porte and Baytown Texas and Lynchburg Ferry History edit nbsp Photo of the Houston Ship Channel in 1913John Richardson Harris platted the town of Harrisburg Texas on Buffalo Bayou at the mouth of Brays Bayou in 1826 He established a steam mill there while making Harrisburg into a logistical center for the Austin s Colony He plied his schooner The Rights of Man through the waters of Galveston Bay and Buffalo Bayou importing supplies from the United States and exporting cotton and hides However fewer people settled Buffalo Bayou than the fertile Brazos Valley so Harrisburg remained a remote overland location from the critical mass of farmlands about 20 miles from Fort Bend Texas and about 40 miles from San Felipe de Austin Texas Travelling the Brazos River presented several hazards most of all its shifting shallow sandbars at its mouth Despite several interventions the river remained hostile to navigation 7 Nicholas Clopper acquired land downstream from Harrisburg the eponymously named Clopper s Point He recruited six men from Ohio to work as traders who sailed the schooner Little Zoe from Cincinnati laden with supplies such as flour and spices nails and other hardware and whiskey and tobacco Two of these hires were his sons Edward and Joseph Clopper They recorded their travels in a journal reporting several hazards of Galveston Bay in route to Buffalo Bayou They ran Little Zoe aground on Galveston Island and later observed two wrecked ships in the bay They encountered the shallow Red Fish Bar which they passed while dragging over it 8 The channel has been used to move goods to the sea since at least 1836 Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay were dredged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to accommodate larger ships In the wake of the 1900 Galveston hurricane the inland Port of Houston was seen as a safer long term option and planning for a larger ship channel began 9 By the mid 1900s the Port of Houston had established itself as the leading port in Texas eclipsing the natural harbors at Galveston and Texas City 10 The Turning Basin terminal in Harrisburg now part of Houston became the port s largest shipping point nbsp Postcard of the Houston Ship Channel undatedOn January 10 1910 residents of Harris County voted 16 to 1 to fund dredging the Houston ship channel to a depth of 25 feet for the amount of 1 250 000 which was then matched by federal funds On June 14 1914 the first deepwater ship steamship Satilla arrived at the port of Houston establishing steamboat service between New York City and Houston On November 10 1914 President Woodrow Wilson opened the Houston Ship Channel part of the Port of Houston 11 The onset of World War I and the first mechanized war s thirst for oil greatly increased use of the ship channel The United States Army Corps of Engineers increased the depth of the channel from 25 to 30 feet in 1922 12 In 1933 the United States Department of War and the United States House Committee on Rivers and Harbors approved a plan to increase the depth of the channel from 30 to 34 feet and widen the Galveston Bay section from 250 to 400 feet The Public Works Administration provided 2 800 000 dollars for the project which was completed in late 1935 13 The proximity to Texas oilfields led to the establishment of numerous petrochemical refineries along the waterway such as the ExxonMobil Baytown installation on the eastern bank of the San Jacinto River Now the channel and surrounding area support the second largest petrochemical complex in the world 14 While much of the Houston Ship Channel is associated with heavy industry two icons of Texas history are also located along its length The USS Texas BB 35 saw service during both world wars and is the oldest remaining example of a dreadnought era battleship in existence 15 The nearby San Jacinto Monument commemorates the Battle of San Jacinto 1836 in which Texas won its independence from Mexico The US Army s San Jacinto Ordnance Depot was located on the channel from 1941 1964 16 During World War II two large shipyards produced side by side at the confluence of Greens Bayou Todd Houston Shipbuilding built mostly Liberty Ships and Brown Shipbuilding built a substantial number of destroyer escorts submarine chasers and amphibious landing craft Currently the channel is dredged to a depth of 43 45 feet The channel was designated a National Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE in 1987 14 The Texas chicken maneuver 17 is known to mariners who regularly navigate large vessels on the Houston Ship Channel An editor has launched a copyright investigation involving this section The text under investigation is currently hidden from public view but is accessible in the page history Please do not remove this or restore blanked content until the issue is resolved by an administrator copyright clerk or volunteer response agent The purported copyright violation copies text from https www ntsb gov investigations AccidentReports Reports MAR1202 pdf Copyvios report as such this page has been listed on the copyright problems page Unless the copyright status of the text of this page or section is clarified and determined to be compatible with Wikipedia s content license the problematic text and revisions or the entire page may be deleted one week after the time of its listing i e after 16 01 6 February 2024 UTC What can I do to resolve the issue If you hold the copyright to this text you can license it in a manner that allows its use on Wikipedia You must permit the use of your material under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 3 0 Unported License CC BY SA 3 0 and the GNU Free Documentation License GFDL unversioned with no invariant sections front cover texts or back 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sure that the contributor did not add content imported from other sources When closing investigations clerks and administrators may find other copyright problems than the one identified If this material is in the proposed rewrite and cannot be easily removed the rewrite may not be usable Steps to list an article at Wikipedia Copyright problems Add the following to the bottom of Wikipedia Copyright problems 2024 January 30 subst article cv Houston Ship Channel from a rel nofollow class external free href https www ntsb gov investigations AccidentReports Reports MAR1202 pdf https www ntsb gov investigations AccidentReports Reports MAR1202 pdf a Add the following template to the talk page of the contributor of the material subst Nothanks web pg Houston Ship Channel url a rel nofollow class external free href https www ntsb gov investigations AccidentReports Reports MAR1202 pdf https www ntsb gov investigations AccidentReports Reports MAR1202 pdf a Place copyvio bottom at the end of the portion you want to blank If nominating the entire page please place this template at the top of the page and set the fullpage parameter to yes As two vessels approach from opposite directions both normally turn to starboard to allow water displaced by their bows to move the ships away from each other and from the channel s centerline After they pass the suction of the displaced water flowing in behind the ships naturally pulls them back toward the center of the waterway Pollution editThis section needs expansion with Expansion You can help by adding to it October 2014 nbsp Lone Star Flag flying on the Houston Ship Channel tour boat on April 2 2016 On December 25 2007 the Houston Ship Channel was featured on the CNN Special Planet in Peril as a potential polluter of nearby neighborhoods That year the University of Texas released a study suggesting that children living within 2 miles 3 2 km of the Houston Ship Channel were 56 more likely to become sick with leukemia than the national average 18 On March 22 2014 a barge carrying nearly a million gallons of marine fuel oil collided with another ship in the Houston Ship Channel causing the contents of one of the barge s 168 000 gallon tanks to leak into Galveston Bay 19 Gallery edit nbsp Drawing of ship at port 1859 nbsp Drawing of ship at port 1859 nbsp The Houston Ship Channel during its first opening in 1915 nbsp Houston Ship Channel and foot of Main Street Houston Texas postcard circa 1910 nbsp Yachts in the Houston Turning Basin Houston postcard circa 1911 nbsp Ship Turning Basin Buffalo River Houston postcard circa 1914 1924 nbsp Cotton on the ship channel Houston circa 1914 nbsp Mosaic tile mural at the Houston Ship Channel Visitor s Center 2016 nbsp Fireboat Howard T Tellepsen in the Houston Channel 2006 nbsp USS Texas museum is in the Houston Ship ChannelSee also edit nbsp Texas portalPhillips disaster of 1989 I 610 Ship Channel BridgeReferences edit Houston Ship Channel Texas NASA Earth Observatory Archived from the original on 2006 10 01 Retrieved 2006 05 01 a b c Welcome to the Houston Galveston Navigation Channel Project Online Resource Center U S Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District December 2005 Archived from the original on January 9 2009 The Houston Ship Channel A History The Port of Houston Authority Archived from the original on 13 June 2008 Retrieved 9 September 2009 Sibley Marilyn McAdams 1968 The Port of Houston A History Austin University of Texas Press p 3 Turning Basin Port of Houston Authority Archived from the original on 18 February 2010 Retrieved 9 February 2010 DHR05 HRD for Competitive Advantage Assignment I All India Management Association Retrieved 9 Feb 2010 Aslam Abid 7 Jan 2008 ENVIRONMENT U S Groups Sue Shell Over Refinery Pollution Inter Press Service News Agency Archived from the original on 2008 05 31 Sibley 1968 pp 15 17 Sibley 1968 pp 17 19 Manny Fernandez and Richard Fausset A Storm Forces Houston the Limitless City to Consider Its Limits The New York Times 30 August 2017 Accessed 31 August 2017 Diana J Kleiner GALVESTON COUNTY Handbook of Texas Online accessed August 30 2014 Uploaded on September 19 2010 Published by the Texas State Historical Association Houston History INDUSTRY FOR WAR AND PEACE 1910 1920 Report of the Chief of Engineers U S Army 1922 A Detailed Description of the Port Houston Port Book May 1935 pg 19 a b Houston Ship Channel American Society of Civil Engineers Retrieved January 29 2022 Battleship Texas State Historic Site Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Accessed August 30 2014 Carter Barcus SAN JACINTO ORDNANCE DEPOT Handbook of Texas Online accessed August 30 2014 Uploaded on June 15 2010 Published by the Texas State Historical Association NTSB Collision of the Tankship Elka Apollon With the Containership MSC Nederland Houston Ship Channel Upper Galveston Bay Texas October 29 2011 page 20 Possible Link Between Ship Channel Air Pollutants Cancer Risks University of Texas School of Public Health Archived from the original on 2009 09 09 Retrieved 2009 08 30 The Associated Press March 23 2014 Oil Spill Cleanup Impedes Major Texas Ship Channel NPR External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Houston Ship Channel Houston Ship Channel from the Handbook of Texas Online Time lapse video of a barge navigating a length of the Houston Ship Channel at night See historical photographs of the Houston Ship Channel the Houston community and more at the University of Houston Digital Library29 42 30 N 95 00 18 W 29 70833 N 95 00500 W 29 70833 95 00500 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Houston Ship Channel amp oldid 1200949215, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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