Houston Ship Channel

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Goat Islands (bright, oblong islands at top center of image). The inset area (denoted by white rectangle line at top left) is magnified as the bottom photo showing the battleship USS|Texas|BB-35|2 and the San Jacinto Monument.]

The Houston Ship Channel in Houston, Texas is part of the Port of Houston—one of the United States's busiest sea ports. "Welcome to the Houston-Galveston Navigation Channel Project Online Resource Center" (description), USACE, December 2005, webpage: [http://www.swg.usace.army.mil/items/hgnc/ USACE-HGNC] .] The channel is a conduit between the continental interior and the Gulf of Mexico for both petrochemical products and Midwestern grain. The original watercourse for the channel, Buffalo Bayou, has its headwaters 30 miles (48 km) to the west of the city of Houston. It has been used to move goods to the sea since at least 1836. 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.

While much of the 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. The nearby San Jacinto Monument commemorates the Battle of San Jacinto (1836) in which Texas won its independence from Mexico.

The Houston Ship Channel has been periodically widened and deepened to accommodate ever-larger ships, and is currently convert|530|ft|m wide by convert|45|ft|m deep by convert|50|mi|km long (161 meters by 14 meters by 80 kilometers). 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.

On December 25, 2007, The Houston Ship Channel was featured on Anderson Cooper's CNN Special,"Planet in Peril," as a controversial and potential polluter of nearby neighborhoods. This year, the University of Texas released a study proving that children living within convert|2|mi|km of the Houston Ship Channel are 56% more likely to become sick with Leukemia than the national average. fact|date=March 2008

The Ship Channel has five vehicular crossings. They are the Washburn Tunnel, the Sidney Sherman Bridge, the Sam Houston Ship Channel Bridge and popularly known as the Beltway 8 Bridge; the Fred Hartman Bridge in Baytown, Texas; and the Lynchburg Ferry.

The channel was designated a National Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in 1987.

Notes

References

*cite web | url=http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17136 | title=Houston Ship Channel, Texas | publisher=NASA Earth Observatory | accessdate=2006-05-01

ee also

*Phillips Disaster

External links

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