Willacy County Navigation District pulls out of shipping container project

A vote by Willacy County Navigation District board members on Jan. 8 has stopped a Port Mansfield shipping container project.

The printed agenda for the meeting listed an executive session to discuss the matter privately, but a vote by the board moved the issue to open session.

After hearing comments by board member Steve Kendrick, Chairman Eric Kennedy and Alberto Trevino, the board declared North American Standards had not met the deadline of Dec. 31 to pay late lease payments, making the company in default of about $300,000.

NAS owners/officials have not been available for comment during the past year as the controversy raged in Willacy County.

The company has not replied to telephone messages left by the Chronicle and Mills hasn’t provided any contact information to the Raymondville Chronicle and to members of “Concerned Citizens of Port Mansfield” group except to say the company has no office.

Audience members cheered and clapped as the lease and the project were declared at an end.

Although the port had several industrial operations in the early 1960s involving fishing, as well as a U.S. Coast Guard buoy tending facility, it has since evolved into a sport fishing resort visited by many tourists. Also, it has become the site for many residential homes, ranging from small fishing cottages to large, expensive homes.

Opponents have argued that their homes, fishing tournaments and sport fishing boats will not mix well with tugboats and barge traffic.

Clanging and banging of large steel shipping containers and barges, the diesel smells of tugboats and tractor-trailer rigs would damage the serene nature of the port, CCPM members say.

Executive Port Director Ron Mills has argued that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which recently had the intercoastal shipping channel and the harbor dredged to a depth of 14 feet, will not maintain the dredging unless industry returns to Port Mansfield.

Board members and visitors resumed their call to hold at least some Navigation District meetings at Port Mansfield during evening hours so port residents may attend meetings.

It does not help transparency to require they drive over a 50-mile round trip to the Wells Fargo Bank in Raymondville for morning meetings, CCPM members state.

Although residents from across much of Willacy County are taxed by the port, few residents of Raymondville, Lyford, Lasara and other taxed areas ever attend monthly 9 a.m. sessions in Raymondville, opponents say.

Two speakers on Wednesday asked if it is true an RV park is being developed in the center of Port Mansfield and if barges will be moored in the port while the RV park is constructed.

Officials are not required or allowed to immediately answer questions from audience members, according to the Texas Open Meetings Act.

TxDOT officials have not yet replied to a request from the Raymondville Chronicle for information about the road that was constructed by state contractors to carry tractor-trailer rigs around a residential area directly to the shipping container facility.

TxDOT contractors built the road and the large concrete slab at the site of the shipping container facility.

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