Weekly News Summary For August 8–14, 2005:
One hundred years ago today, on August 8, 1905, a meeting was held in Victoria, Texas, to generate support for an Intracoastal canal connecting the Mississippi River to the Rio Grande. At that meeting, the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association GICA was born. And like the canal that the new association championed, GICA itself has grown and prospered beyond what anyone could have imagined 100 years ago.
Today in Victoria, GICA will kick off its centennial celebration. With this special issue, The Waterways Journal salutes the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association and its many accomplishments over the last century….
Twenty-five years ago, the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association held its annual meeting in Victoria, Texas to commemorate its Diamond Jubilee (75th) anniversary. Writing in The Waterways Journal of August 2, 1980, the late Dale Miller, who was president at the time, recalled the first convention held in Victoria in 1905.
"An audacious young banker in the cowtown of Victoria named Clarence S.E. Holland took pen in hand and composed a clarion call for a convention…to discuss the feasibility of an intracoastal canal" he said. He added that since the territory was little more than a wilderness with no deepwater ports to connect, many thought Holland was suffering from "some kind of dementia induced by the heat of a Gulf Coast summer."
The article went on to describe how Miller’s father, Roy, joined in the effort, which finally resulted in "a large and enthusiastic convention" on August 8, 1905.
Miller traced the development of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) beginning with the early projects that were five feet deep and 40 feet wide and not connected, then the Rivers and Harbors Acts of 1925 and 1927 that authorized the Intracoastal Canal "as an integral facility" extending from the Mississippi to Corpus Christi with a depth of nine feet and a bottom width of 100 feet….
The cooperation between the Army Corps of Engineers and Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association (GICA) has long been standing. By taking on an enormous task of establishing a 1,300-mile canal weaving through southern states from Texas to Florida, the Corps and GICA began a close relationship that has flourished over the past 100 years.
Galveston Engineer District spokeswoman Marilyn Uhrich said the cooperation and collaboration between the Corps and GICA has been invaluable. She said they often rely on the organization because of the experience and knowledge of its members.
"We have a lot of contact with Raymond (Butler) and the organization," she said. "They are really easy to work with and do a great job. We really count on them when it comes to challenges. It just hasn’t been him. We have always worked well with whoever has been in charge. We have developed a really close relation with GICA since it’s founding."…
The dominant carrier on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway for the last decade is Houston-based Kirby Corporation, On this waterway where tank barges rule, Kirby today boasts 887 tank barges, with a total capacity of 16.6 million barrels. Kirby owns roughly 30 percent of all of the tank barges in the United States.
It wasn’t always that way, though. In fact, Kirby didn’t even operate in the marine transportation industry until 1969, when it purchased Dixie Carriers.
The history of Kirby can be traced back to 1921, when John Henry Kirby, a pioneer in the development of the Houston business community, formed Kirby Petroleum Company.
The firm operated as an independent oil and gas exploration and development company until 1956, when, after the sale of its producing properties, the remaining non-producing acreage was merged with three other independent oil and gas companies to form Kirby VenSyn Petroleum Company, a publicly traded company. As a result of the mergers, the Murchison family of Dallas, noted for its prior ownership of the Dallas Cowboys, owned approximately 35 percent of the company; the Murchison family remains shareholders of Kirby today….
In its centennial year, the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association (GICA) is returning to its roots by celebrating its 100th annual convention in Victoria, Texas, where the idea of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) originated.
In Victoria, those in attendance will revisit the past and plan for the future as a part of countless planned festivities. The past, in fact, began in 1905 when C.S.E. Holland, president of the Victoria Business Men’s Association, called for a meeting of interested parties from Texas and Louisiana for the purpose of discussing construction of a waterway along their coasts to facilitate the movement of trade goods.
The Port of Victoria was developed in 1968 when the 35-mile barge canal to Victoria was completed to a navigable depth of nine feet and a width of 100 feet. In 1995, work began to widen and deepen the channel to a depth of 12 feet with a width of 125 feet. That project was completed in March 2002. A 400- by 150-foot barge slip was also added….
In other news…
The Baton Rouge (La.) Port Commission has placed Roger Richard, the port’s chief executive officer, on paid administrative leave following a dispute over the legality of his appointment and pending a review of the port’s financial records.
In a unanimous vote July 29, the commission voted to accept the opinion of its legal counsel that Richard’s employment contract legally ended on November 30, 2004, with Gov. Blanco’s completion of appointments of a new commission. The legal opinion from attorneys T. Barry Wilkinson and Stephen W. Glusman was based on Louisiana Statute LA R.S. 42:3, which states that the term of office for employees and officials of state boards cannot last longer than the term of the board who hired the employee or official.
In a memo to commission members, Wilkinson said, "The initial contract term of eight years was approved on December 14, 2000, by the commission members appointed by Gov. (Mike) Foster, whose term ended at noon on January 12, 2004. Governor (Kathleen Babineaus) Blanco’s term commenced at noon on January 12, 2004, and she appointed all new commissioners by appointments made on June 2 and November 30, 2004. Consequently, the legal term of the contract ended November 30, 2004, which was the date upon which the newly constituted commission was complete."…
Richard was named executive director of the port in 1998. His title was changed to chief executive officer in 2002….
The Ports of Indiana handled 3.8 million tons of cargo in the first half of 2005, a 19 percent increase from the same period last year—and last year turned out to be the ports’ highest annual tonnage volume since 1998.
In 2004, the Ports of Indiana moved 7.6 million tons of cargo across its docks for the entire year, a 35 percent increase from 2003. The 2004 shipping total also surpassed every year since 1998 by more than a million tons and, in some cases, more than 2 million tons.
The state port system consists of three public ports: Mount Vernon and Jeffersonville on the Ohio River and Burns Harbor on Lake Michigan….
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