Houston gets permission for Bayport expansion

Houston gets permission for Bayport expansion    After more than five years of preparations and planning, the Port of Houston Authority on Monday signed the federal permit for its Bayport Container and Cruise Terminal on Monday.
   The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued the long-awaited permit for the construction of the $1.2-billion terminal, despite the opposition of some local residents for environmental reasons.
   “We have always felt that this step would occur,” said Jim Edmonds, Port of Houston Authority commission chairman, commenting on the approval of the project.
   The Corps studied the port authority's Bayport terminal for more than five years, reviewing the site location and its environmental impact. The port of Houston has provided environmental mitigation measures to address those concerns.
   The Bayport terminal project will be built in phases over 15 to 20 years. The port of Houston said previously that the Bayport facility will provide enough space for seven ships and feature a 378-acre container storage yard. It will have a maximum capacity of about 1.4 million containers, representing a 200-percent increase over the port’s current container handling capacity.
   A competing, neighboring project — the SSA/CP Ships container terminal in Texas City — has recently been approved by the authorities.