The Calcasieu Ship Channel is a waterway that connects the city of

Lake Charles, Louisiana Lake Charles is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, fifth-most populous city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the county seat, parish seat of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, Calcasieu Parish, located on Lake Charles (Louisiana), Lake Char ...

, with the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

. Its existence allows the Port of Lake Charles, which is more than 30 miles from the Gulf, to be the 10th largest

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manc ...

in the United States. The primary use of the channel is the importation of materials for processing in Lake Charles' large

refinery A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value. Types of refineries Different types of refineries ...

industry, including

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

, and the export of refined products, such as

gasoline Gasoline ( North American English) or petrol ( Commonwealth English) is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When for ...

and chemicals.

Early history

The

Gulf Intracoastal Waterway The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) is the portion of the Intracoastal Waterway located along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is a navigable inland waterway running approximately from Saint Marks, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas. T ...

(GIWW), from the Sabine River (Louisiana) to the

Calcasieu River The Calcasieu River ( ; ) is a river on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast in southwestern Louisiana. Approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed J ...

, was built between 1913 and 1914 with a width of and a depth of . In 1925 the width was dredged to wide and deep. Sometime in the 1930's the canal was dredged to deep and called the Lake Charles Deep Water Channel. In 1941 the channel was part of the GIWW and maintained at deep and a width of . Through the GIWW the Sabine and Calcasieu estuaries became co-mingled with

saltwater intrusion Saltwater intrusion is the movement of saline water into freshwater aquifers, which can lead to groundwater quality degradation, including drinking water sources, and other consequences. Saltwater intrusion can naturally occur in coastal aquifers, ...

which resulted in the combined Calcasieu-Sabine Basin.

History

The ship channel runs along the west side of

Calcasieu Lake Calcasieu Lake is a brackish lake located in southwest Louisiana, United States, located mostly within Cameron Parish. The Lake, also known as Big Lake to the local population, is paralleled on its west shore by Louisiana Highway 27, and is lo ...

between the lake and "West Cove". It is a combination of natural lakes, streams, and man-made cuts. The Calcasieu Ship Channel comprises two sections, the "Outer Bar" at , pass the seaward state boundary, and "The Inner Channel" at measured from the three mile seaward boundary. Authority of the

United States Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wo ...

and Louisiana to regulate traffic in the ship channel, specifically past the three mile border, was affirmed in court concerning ship channel pilots. Being a busy

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

port there are ship studies on the channel Over the years, as ships have grown larger, the channel has had increasing difficulty in accommodating the larger ships. In June 2009, the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to dredge the channel and bring it up to modern standards of depth and bottom width. By widening and straightening the Calcasieu River (removing the natural

Sinuosity Sinuosity, sinuosity index, or sinuosity coefficient of a continuously differentiable curve having at least one inflection point is the ratio of the curvilinear length (along the curve) and the Euclidean distance ( straight line) between th ...

), as well as dredging, the Port of Lake Charles has been able to handle larger ships. Cruise ships aside, the channel cannot accommodate the larger ships. The channel jetties extends into the Gulf of Mexico .

Port of Lake Charles

The "Port of Lake Charles began 2024 as the nations 13th busiest port but by May 2024 had reached 10th place.

References

{{Coord, 29, 59, 47, N, 93, 20, 2, W, region:US-LA, display=title Transportation in Louisiana Buildings and structures in Lake Charles, Louisiana 1920s establishments in Louisiana

Ship Canal A ship canal is a canal especially intended to accommodate ships used on the oceans, seas, or lakes to which it is connected. Definition Ship canals can be distinguished from barge canals, which are intended to carry barges and other vessel ...