COMMISSIONERS MOVE TO RENEW PORT BRIDGE PERMIT

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

For the second time in 20 years, the Brownsville Navigation District is seeking to renew the presidential bridge permit issued by President Bill Clinton back in 1997.

Clinton visited the Brownsville airport back then and announced that he had issued the permit to the port was approved by the U.S. Department of State to build two bridges, one for commercial-cargo vehicular traffic and the other for commercial-cargo rail traffic, across the Rio Grande River from River Mile 24, eight miles east of downtown Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas, and three miles south of the Brownsville Ship Channel, to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico.

Commissioner John Wood says that although the port has no plan on hand to start the construction now, the permit's renewal is critical to give commissioners the option of building one as the urban area increases.

"It's nice to have the option of finally building tjhis much needed infrastructure on port property," he said. 

The Brownsville Navigation District has formally called upon the Department to refrain from revoking or modifying the 1997 Presidential permit. It believes that such action would not serve U.S. national interests; to the contrary, this would be harmful to U.S. interest.

Port officials say that a revocation would not benefit any current or future border-crossing project and that such action would not benefit the United States Government by relieving it of a commitment to provide the financial resources to build new federal facilities at the bridges as the Port has committed to constructing those facilities, and this is stipulated in the permit. 

Put simply, they said, there would be nothing to be gained by revoking the permit.

A revocation, they said, would result in grave consequences. Its immediate effect would be to erase the very sizable investment that the Port, a public asset, has made in the project over nearly 20 years. This action could well result in killing the project, as securing the resources to submit a new application may well be problematic in the wake of a revocation.

District Chairman Sergio "Tito" Lopez named Secretary Esteban Guerra as chairman of a newly created committee focused on enhancing economic development opportunities at the Port of Brownsville. The committee also includes Commissioner John Reed as vice chair.

Senator John Cornyn visited the Port of Brownsville on Sept. 16 to participate in an economic development roundtable discussion with Rio Grande Valley public officials and members of the business community. The event was organized by RGV Partnership.

Under Guerra's direction, the economic development committee is tasked with recruiting and retaining value added industrial growth and creating well-paying jobs through strategic initiatives that focus on improving the port’s competitiveness.

"Having the presidential permit gives the port a valuable tool to foster economic development," Guerra said. "We have to learn from the lessons of the past and make progress to serve the residents of our district."

 

There are no bridges between the site and the Gulf of Mexico. The two bridges were to be built adjacent to each other at the terminus of an undeveloped 1,000-foot wide, BND-owned corridor extending three miles northward from the site to the Brownsville Ship Channel. 

The bridges will be connected to the Ship Channel by a roadway and a railway built through the center of the corridor. Texas State Highway 4 (SH 4) bisects the corridor approximately 3,600 feet north of the bridge site. The General Services Administration (GSA) inspection facility and BND toll-installation were to be located on 40 acres of land immediately south of SH 4. 

The new bridges will: 

• Provide the Port of Brownsville with additional direct rail and road links with Mexico, thereby enhancing its competitiveness; 

• Create an alternative route for commercial traffic destined for the Port, most of which is obliged to use bridges located in downtown Brownsville (the Los Tomates bridge, scheduled to open in March, 1999, is also located in the metropolitan Brownsville area). 

• Divert traffic away from downtown Brownsville bridges and thereby reduce noise, vehicle congestion, air pollution, and deterioration of roadways in the downtown area caused by commercial traffic. 

• Reduce the traffic of hazardous materials carriers through populated areas in Brownsville (below is a long line of trucks carrying hazardous materials in front of J.T. Canales Elementary School); and 

• Accommodate anticipated economic growth in the Brownsville area.

For trucks, the principal development has been the opening of the Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates. This provided a much-improved crossing with modern new facilities for the federal inspection agencies. Nevertheless, trucks traveling between the Port and Los Tomates are still obliged to traverse congested urban sectors of Brownsville. 

A significant number of these trucks are overweight, carrying products such as steel coils. If anything, the growth that has occurred in these areas makes them even more congested than they were when the permit was issued, raising the safety concerns still further. 

The local community is developing plans for an "East Loop'' that would circle to the south and east of much of the urban area. If constructed, this would provide some temporary relief to the congestion and would improve safety. Any relief would be short-lived, however, as the urban area is already spreading in this direction, and in a decade or two, the congestion problem would arise again. 

Both men agree that the only long-term solution for trucks is a dedicated route from the Port directly south into Mexico that would totally remove Port truck traffic from heavily traveled and populated areas.