Pelican Island Port?

“Will eventually happen”

Elizabeth Campbell, Jun 17, 10.

The Ports of Galveston and Houston co-hosted a meeting on June 14th at the San Luis Galveston Island Convention Center to gather public input for the Pelican Island Container Terminal Conceptual Planning Study. The project is “part of a multi-year process that began in May 2007 with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two ports, “ reports GuidryNews.com. “A March 2008 interlocal agreement between the ports called for the present conceptual study.”

Galveston Port Director, Steve Cernak, said the following about the project and the public participation meeting.

Tonight’s the first public meeting for the conceptual planning effort for the joint venture between the Port of Galveston and the Port of Houston Authority. [We are] looking at developmental alternatives for our jointly owned properties on Pelican Island.

There is, I believe, a total of six alternatives represented here with different variations of each.

What you see here tonight is very, very basic. It’s important to remember that it’s a concept. The idea here is to garner some input from the public and take these comments and come back and see how we can make everything fit, to try to mesh everybody’s concerns and come up with a win-win scenario for going forward together.

For a project, looking at what is involved in developing a project of this size and the investment involved, the most optimistic schedule would be ten years from now. Realistically, we’re looking at a ten to fifteen year project development.

Port of Houston’s Director of Planning and Environment, Charlie Jenkins, also spoke about the process.

We’re really trying to learn what the issues are in Galveston that could facilitate or be involved with the potential development of the property over there. If the site scores out - out of all the sites we are looking at - as the best, well, we will move forward with development. If it doesn’t, then we will bide our time and it will eventually happen.

We’re weighing inland transportation cost, environmental impacts, social issues, the business issues, the logistics supply chain, the whole gamut…We’re out trying to judge, very early on, what the community [reception], excitement or concern, would be.

Photo Credit: Galveston.com)