Houston Ship Channel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Houston Ship Channel in Houston, Texas is part of the Port of Houston—one of the United States's busiest sea ports. 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 saw service during both World Wars, and is the last 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 530 feet wide by 45 feet deep by 50 miles 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.
The Ship Channel has five vehicular crossings. They are the Washburn Tunnel, the Sidney Sherman Bridge, popularly known as the (Interstate) 610 or Ship Channel bridge; the Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge, formerly the Jesse Jones Toll Bridge and popularly known as the Beltway 8 Bridge; the Fred Hartman Bridge in Baytown, Texas; and the Lynchburg Ferry.
[edit] External links
- Houston Ship Channel from the Handbook of Texas Online
[edit] References
- Houston Ship Channel, Texas. NASA Earth Observatory. Retrieved on 2006-05-01.
This article contains material that originally came from a NASA website. According to their site usage guidelines, "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". For more information, please review NASA's use guidelines.
