Officials of the Port of Brownsville in southern Texas say that Monday’s signing of a law by President Barack Obama gives the go-ahead to deepening of the Brownsville Ship Channel.
The deepening project is one of dozens of infrastructure projects included in the Water Resources and Development Act and will be eligible for federal funding.
Brownsville is a deep-water port on the Rio Grande near the border with Mexico. The project would entail deepening the channel, which runs from the port to the Gulf of Mexico, from 42 feet to 52 feet and allow it to accept much larger cargo vessels.
The US Army Corps of Engineers had approved the plan in 2014 and it had been awaiting only political approval since then.
