Terrebonne Port scores on hopes for future dredging of Houma canal

New record-keeping and making the reporting of cargo a priority are making a difference in the Port of Terrebonne’s national ranking, which could mean more dredging of the Houma Navigational Canal.

That potential will increase even more if Sen. Mary Landrieu D-La is successful with a project she has been working with, which is getting seafood counted as part of the cargo total for the port.

Keeping the canal at its maximum depth of 15 feet is essential, says Port Director David Rabalais, to accommodate bigger vessels related to deep-water drilling projects.

And how often channels get dredged is determined by the tonnage of cargo passing through a given port, because those priorities are determined by a cash-strapped U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Terrebonne port is a wild card in that regard. For many years the port only reported cargo that was related to the docks at its actual site, like most other facilities.

But Rabalais learned that when the port was created, its boundaries included all navigable waterways within the parish.

That means cargo passing through Terrebonne on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, for example, or loaded on a dock in Dulac, becomes part of the Port of Terrebonne’s overall tonnage.

Instituting a program of making sure everything gets counted, Rabalais said, has moved the port from the very bottom of the national priority list, at 150th in its port class, to 98. A later adjustment moved the rank to 86th.

“Based on the fact that TPC’s jurisdiction includes all navigable waterways in Terrebonne Parish and over 115,000 commercial non -ishing vessels navigated through TPC’s jurisdiction in 2013, either cargo was not being reported or something else was wrong,” Rabalais said. “The Waterborne Commerce Statistic Center housed within the USACE’s New Orleans District is the entity tasked with collecting all cargo data reported around the country. After meeting with this group it was discovered that their system only included a very small portion of the Terrebonne Port’s actual jurisdiction.”

With help from Landrieu and Sen. David Vitter R-La, corrections were made.

“That increased our allocation for maintenance dredging from a few hundred thousand in previous years to $1.5 million in 2014,” Rabalais said.

He is now turning his attention to educating ship companies and captains to the need for keeping records that reflect their tonnage, which could bring the rank higher.

Plans for including seafood in the mix has been a priority for Landrieu’s staffers, who say the inclusion could be as simple as adding a code to the forms that are filled out by ships and boats.

The data itself on landings is available from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, with some tweaks to their record keeping system.

Another hurdle the port looks to overcome is the insufficiency of the HNC depth to meet future needs of the oil and gas industry. A Corp study concerning possible overall deepening of the channel is still underway, and no timetable has been announced for its completion.

“With all this data now being reported correctly our yearly allocation of dredging funds may be enough to maintain the depth of the HNC at its federally authorized depth of 15 feet,” Rabalais said. “However this doesn’t undo all the projects and jobs lost due to insufficient depth in the past.”