Director Says Project May Negatively Impact Port

By Ted Jackovics, Tampa Tribune, Fla.

Mar. 22–TAMPA — – A proposal to build a pipeline on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico to transport petroleum from Mississippi to Tampa could undermine the Port of Tampa’s oil shipping business, port officials warned Tuesday.

A Georgia company quietly proposed the project last fall to state officials in Tallahassee and continues to pursue it, Tampa port director Richard Wainio said Tuesday.

The project would have environmental, security and economic impacts, Wainio said at Tuesday’s Tampa Port Authority meeting.

The port director said he was only calling attention to potential problems, not opposing the pipeline proposal at this time.

He told port authority members that the project could pose the potential loss of hundreds of local maritime industry jobs and millions of dollars in payrolls and port fees if the pipeline supplanted petroleum shipping traffic that uses the port. That traffic accounts for 40 percent of all vessels at the Port of Tampa, which in turn creates jobs at oil terminals and shipyards.

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