West St. Mary Port authorities are prepared to embark on the next step of a waterway deepening project.

The study deepening the Intracoastal Canal from Freshwater Bayou in Iberia Parish to the Port of West St. Mary to a depth of 16 feet is done, Executive Director Phil Prejean told the commission.

The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers now has 180 days to submit it to Congress with comment for final action.

"We were able to meet with the undersecretary of the Army for the Corps and presented it, and we asked that they move with it in a timely fashion," Prejean said.

Approval of the study at various levels of federal bureaucracy indicates not only appropriateness of the project’s scope, but the potential to secure funding for it after all the hoops have been jumped through.

Also Tuesday, engineer Reid Miller of Miller Engineers and Associates, said that spoil disposal when the port dredges its slip channel could be deposited in a couple of different areas already approved as a disposal area by environmental authorities. He’s obtaining price quotes, and said there will probably be a need to "knock down" the existing spoil from previous dredgings with land-based machinery to make a more uniform elevation to deposit the new material.

"They made the bank so high, they can’t cast over it" Prejean explained of the suction-dredging machinery that will deposit material on the site.

Prejean also told the commission that he is closer to obtaining affordable casualty insurance coverage, but has a couple more proposals incoming before he makes a recommendation.