Board Meeting
March 14, 2023
2:00 PM
4400 Highway 225, Suite 200, Deer Park, TX
Chairman’s Annual Report
November 8, 2022
What is the Houston Ship Channel Security District?
It is a unique public-private partnership dedicated to improving the security of the region’s waterside and landside supply chain. This is accomplished by:
1) Providing the local matching share funds for federal grants for security projects; 2) Providing funding assistance to state and local law enforcement agencies for security monitoring and patrols; and 3) Providing security training classes for personnel employed by the facilities of the District
Yearly Highlights
You will soon hear from our Law Enforcement partners. Each will be making a presentation today briefly describing their accomplishments and their plans. There accomplishments and plans are made possible, in part, by the funding mentioned earlier. This funding is obtained through our annual assessments of the industries which make up the Houston Ship Channel Security District.
Port Security Grant Program
Through industry’s 25% cost matching support for Port Security Grants, our partners obtained over $2.5 million for Security Projects in 2022. Put another way, for 25 cents our members receive a dollars’ worth of services to ensure our cargo keeps moving in the Port area.
The HSCSD Board approved matching requests for port security grants for:
1) City of Houston almost $.75 million to update the firefighting simulator, Port patrol and dive unit training and equipment enhancements, and Continue the build of a new Marine Tactical Operations Center; 2) Harris County CTS over $1 million for upgrades to Port Security Surveillance System; and 3) City of Baytown over $.75 million for improvements and upgrades to the Bomb Squad/SAR Teams training and equipment.
The Security District also helped fund almost $1 million in operations and maintenance of equipment and assets purchased with current and previous PSGP awards.
Training
Attendance at the Security District training early this year continued to be limited by industry restrictions on employee attendance at large group meetings. Attendance picked up as the year went on and by the last quarter of the year, classes were at capacity. The District also sponsored in-person meetings and virtual webinars including: 1) a TWIC Reader Rule workshop; 2) an information sharing meeting with the CFATS Associate Director Kelly Murray; and 3) a CFATS Risk Tiering presentation. We are looking at other education and training opportunities, with institutions of higher learning,
for the employees of the companies and facilities of the District.
Maritime Security Analysts
The HSCSD continued the funding of $177,000 for the continued support of two maritime intelligence analyst positions within Texas DPS to focus on maritime security threats. One position is based in Austin at the State Fusion Center, and one is based in Houston with DPS’s intelligence center, to include work at locations within the Security District. We are incredibly pleased with the work we have seen produced by them so far over the past years.
Closing
What makes the HSCSD work is that it is a public-private partnership, created by industry for industry. Our success is owed to you as great partners. We are constantly engaging to make sure we are being good stewards, and if you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please contact me directly or your zone representative. This only works if you continue to see the benefit of supporting this partnership.
