02-01-10 Regular Meeting of the La Porte Development Corporation Board of Directors minutes

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Since returning from the 1988-90 dry docking, the Texas has been back at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historical Park, sitting in brackish water (not fresh water, but lower salt content than sea water). Steel and water are not a good combination. Independent maritime engineering surveys of the ship have been conducted from time to time to assess the ship's condition. The most recent survey was completed in February 2008. The inescapable fact is that the outer hull plating is now so thin that there is real danger that the Texas could suffer a hull breach, take on water and sink if she had to be towed. She has several active "seepage" -type leaks that are kept in check by monitored submersible pumps. As recently as May 2008, she suffered a significant hull breach that placed her in jeopardy of sinking. Trim Tank D-12 is a compartment directly below the After Steering space and there is an active 4-5 gallon per hour "seepage" -type leak in that compartment. Without warning, the leak rate increased to over 40 gallons per minute, in excess of the capacity of the pump in the space. Fortunately, a team of divers were at the ship that day conducting training. A diver was sent down, in scuba gear, to locate the breach by feeling along the hull for the suction that identified the hole. As the diver was feeling for the hole, her hand pushed through the paper-thin hull plating causing the water influx to increase to an estimated 200 gallons per minute. Fortunately, the dive team placed a temporary patch on the breach and additional portable pumps were brought in to pump the water out. This incident is only the most recent and the most dramatic of the problems below the waterline. Maintenance and restoration efforts have focused on getting publically- viewable spaces in condition to be seen by visitors. Maintenance and restoration funds are always in short supply and, over the last sixty years, care and attention that should have been focused on keeping the ship in a secure floating condition were, instead, focused on publically-viewable spaces. The result is that, below the waterline, particularly in the after half of the ship, the Texas is not watertight and her internal bulkheads will not prevent her from sinking in the event of another maior hull breach. Both the U. S. Coast Guard and officials at the Port of Houston have expressed grave concern that any attempt to move the Texas might result in the ship sinking in the Houston Ship Channel. Ifthat were to occur, the adverse economic impact to the maritime traffic in the second-largest port in the United States could be disastrous. There is not a dry dock in the Houston-Galveston area large enough to accommodate the Texas. The dry dock used by the Texas in 1988-90 is no longer available. Although dry docks of sufficient capacity exist in New Orleans, Mobile and Tampa, an open-ocean tow to reach one of them, given the ship's condition, is out ofthe question. Even if it were physically possible to get the Texas into a dry dock, that does not solve the problem. The problem gets solved when the ship is permanently removed from the water. 6