The Tampa Port Authority Board of Commissioners approved a beneficial, joint project with The Mosaic Company that will result in the transfer of dredge materials from Mosaic’s port berth along the Alafia River to one of the port authority’s spoil islands.
The cooperative arrangement between the port authority and Mosaic will assist Mosaic and the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) to proceed with essential, ongoing maintenance dredging—an amount estimated at 350,000 cubic yards, that will be transported to the TPA’s Spoil Island 2D—in order to keep Mosaic’s berth channel to an adequate operational depth. ACOE is responsible for dredging the Alafia channel and the Mosaic berth, but the areas that have been used for depositing dredge materials have reached capacity. The spoil islands, owned and maintained by the port authority, are important refuge and nesting habitats for certain protected bird species.
In exchange for the use of Spoil Island 2D as depository for the dredge materials, the arrangement calls for Mosaic to pay for the design, permitting, construction and related costs of the necessary control discharge structure improvements on Spoil Island 3D, also owned by the TPA. This will allow Mosaic and the ACOE to effectively utilize the spoil islands during the process this December. Without this important agreement, Mosaic would have had to empty one of their full sites, thereby delaying the channel by at least one year.
The Port of Tampa is Florida’s largest port for cargo tonnage and one of the nation’s most diverse ports, handling a wide mix of bulk, break-bulk, and containerized cargo, as well as one of the nation’s premier cruise ports and a major center for shipbuilding and repair.
[mappress]
Source: tampaport, August 17, 2011