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Thursday, November 1, 2001
Packery dredging to receive $1 million
Project could take construction bids within next year
By Tara Copp
Scripps Howard News Service

George Gongora/Caller-Times file

The Packery Channel dredging project is set to receive $1 million, which puts it on schedule to accept construction bids by fall of 2002.

   WASHINGTON - The Packery Channel dredging project is set to receive $1 million that puts it on schedule to accept construction bids by fall 2002.
   The House of Representatives is expected today to pass the 2002 Energy and Water appropriations bill conference report that contains Packery's money; the Senate is expected to do the same either later this week or next. After both chambers pass the conference report, the bill is sent to the president's desk for his signature.
   Early this year, city officials got the news that no new projects anywhere in the nation would see money in the 2002 budget. Then in June, they heard the House and Senate would fund $132,000 in 2002 - a drop in the bucket compared to the project's estimated $30-million price tag.
   'In the works for awhile'
   That money "would've been appreciated, but $132,000 would only allow us to continue studying the project, then try and get construction money in the 2002-03 bill," said City Councilman Mark Scott.
   When the $132,000 figure was announced, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said she would try to get more money for the project when the bill went to conference. She did.
   "This project has been in the works for awhile - so she got them to look at it in a different context," said Tom Niskala, CEO of the Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce.
   Developer Paul Schexnailder's investment group has said it is planning a $677-million resort centered on the dredged channel.
   No longer just a study
   The difference between getting $132,000 this year in funds to continue to studying the project, and getting $1 million that includes money to begin construction is more than just dollars, advocates said.
   "The government funds thousands of studies," Scott said. "But until you have construction dollars, you don't have a project, you just have a project that is being studied."
   And getting the first $1 million in construction money increases the likelihood that the dredging will then receive the other $18.5 million Congress has authorized - but not yet appropriated - for the project.
   "The Corps of Engineers always like to finish what they start," Scott said.
   Hutchison said that "with this million-dollar appropriation, the Packery Channel project can finally begin construction. I am proud to have worked with local officials in Corpus Christi to help make this project a reality."
   Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, who worked the House side of the money push, said the bill also contains $250,000 for an environmental restoration report for the Wetland Education Center at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas.
   What comes next
   The $1 million is only one of many factors that need to come together in the next 11 months in order to be ready to issue construction bids by next September, said city engineer Angel Escobar.
   "There's quite a bit left to happen," Escobar said. For starters, the Army Corps of Engineers' design plan, which is 75 percent ready, is scheduled to be completed by December. After that, it's sent to Washington to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for approval.
   On another front, the Corps is also finishing the project's environmental impact study; a draft copy of the study is due in November and will then be open to interagency review and public comment until next summer, Escobar said.
   Final approval of the study, which is given by the Environmental Protection Agency, is expected around next August, he said.
   "If that occurs, if we've jumped through all the hoops, then in September we could award a contract," Escobar said. The request for bids to begin dredging could come in August, they would be open contracts that would be publicized through Commerce Business Daily, he said.


Scripps Howard correspondent Tara Copp can be reached at coppt@shns.com

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