Members of The Rotary Club of Port Arthur probably came away with a better understanding of how the United States Coast Guard works after their meeting on Thursday afternoon at the Medical Center of Southeast Texas in Port Arthur.

Capt. Randal Ogrydziak, commanding officer of the Marine Safety Unit in Port Arthur, addressed the Rotarians. He was invited by Bill Worsham, chairman of the committee to get Port Arthur designated a Coast Guard city.

Worsham said in a prior News article the purpose of the committee is for Coast Guard personnel and their families serving at the MSU and the station at Sabine Pass to feel at home and that Port Arthur is their home away from home, to enhance their quality of life in the community.

The committee is currently in the second stage of the program after the first stage of the initial application in June 2014.

To obtain the designation, the city must demonstrate a broad range of programs and activities for the Coast Guard.

Bill McCoy and Paige Snyder with the Greater Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce, Tammy Kotzur with the Port Arthur Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Doreen Badeaux and the Rev. Sinclair Oubre with the Port Arthur International Seafarers’ Center, in addition to former Mayor Deloris “Bobbie” Prince and Maj. John Owens of the Port Arthur Police Department, have also stood out to Worsham with their work on the committee.

Next on the schedule for Coast Guard families is:

• The KCS Holiday Express at 3 p.m. on Dec. 8. The Coast Guard will be honored with a special review at the Port Arthur International Seafarers’ Center, 401 Houston Ave. in Port Arthur.
• A personnel inspection at 9 a.m. on Dec. 16 at the International Avenue of Flags at the Seawall near the Jefferson County Sub-Courthouse in Port Arthur.
• A Christmas dinner at the station on Pleasure Island for Coast Guardsmen on duty on Dec. 23.

Ogrydziak said the Coast Guard is one of 22 agencies in nine different districts. Port Arthur lies in the 8^th Coast Guard District.

Those districts are divided into 39 sectors. The Port Arthur sector covers all of East Texas and much of Southwest Louisiana and has the same authority as the Houston-Galveston sector.

The major waterways of the sector are the Sabine-Neches Ship Channel, the Calcasieu Ship Canal and the International Waterway. Ogrydziak compared them to highways.

He added that there is much traffic on these waterways and the Coast Guard uses radar to track the ships movements. They also provide aids to navigation from the Sabine Pass station.

There are 174 Coast Guard personnel in the area.

Ogrydziak called Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana as the nation’s capital of energy:

• Number one destination for crude oil
• Number one refiner of jet fuel
• Third busiest petrochemical
• The area refines a minimum of 13 percent of America’s daily fuel consumption
• It has 55 percent of the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve capacity
• Six Liquefied National Gas export terminals
• $150 billion fiscally active energy growth projected for Fiscal Year 2017

“It’s wild around here,” he said.

The MSU is composed of four different departments: logistics, response, prevention and vessel traffic service.

The USCG missions, likewise, is stewardship, safety and security.

Under marine safety, foreign and domestic vessels are inspected, facilities inspected, marine casualties investigated and aids to navigation provided.

They also perform marine environmental response, port-waterway coastal security, defense support and readiness, military outload operations and container inspections.

“The Coast Guard is heavily involved everywhere,” Ogrydziak said.

He said some of that includes contingency planning and preparedness, severe weather planning, area maritime security planning, area contingency planning, and pollution and security exercises.

The Coast Guard also partners with other organizations to complete their mission. He said it takes teamwork.

Ogrydziak took one question from the audience about deepening the Sabine-Neches Ship Channel in the near future.

It will be deepened from 40 feet to 48 feet to allow ships with deeper drafts to navigate it. It will also mean more traffic on the waterway — an 80 percent increase in the next three to five years.

However, it will be a massive undertaking and it will take 10 years to complete the project.

“It will create a great economic boom,” he said.

David Ball: 409-721-2427