Jax Ports Chief Setting Stage for Panama Canal Expansion

Jacksonville Port Authority (JPA) Chairman Rick Ferrin is meeting with the Panama Canal Authority this week to sign a memorandum of understanding on marketing and other issues. With more than 600 ships going through the Panama Canal to the First Coast annually, Ferrin is hoping to build better ties so Jacksonville can be more competitive, especially when the Panama Canal is expanded in 2014. Tampa and Savannah already have similiar agreements set up.

The ghost of an old political issue seems to be reappearing. Due to a sandbar blocking the St. Johns River, Jacksonville did not develop as quickly as other cities in northeast Florida during the nineteenth century while St. Augustine and Fernandina Beach grew. There is a plan to deepen the St. Johns River with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers saying it can be done by 2016 while the JPA insists it can be done by 2014.