WHY NOT JUST ABANDON THE GIWW BETWEEN CORPUS CHRISTI AND BROWNSVILLE?
While the ICT requested, and the USACE authorized, a study to provide information to be used in the Socioeconomic Section of the EIS, on the economics of the area with the GIWW open and with it closed, the purpose of the EIS is to describe the impacts for maintenance dredging of the GIWW through the Laguna Madre based on new data and to analyze alternatives for accomplishing that maintenance. Neither Congress nor the Court charged the USACE with any other task. The Laguna Madre reach of the GIWW is a channel authorized by Congress and only Congress can authorize a study to close it. Therefore, that question is outside the scope of the EIS. The No Action Alternative for the EIS is the continued maintenance of the GIWW as it has historically been done.
