JAXPORT Harbor Deepening in Jacksonville, Florida

It was a federal dredging project that took the lower St. Johns River channel from 40 feet to 47 feet between the sea buoy and JAXPORT's Blount Island Marine Terminal, finished in May 2022.

JAXPORT states that the $420 million project deepened the Jacksonville shipping channel from 40 feet (12.2 meters) to 47 feet (14.3 meters), and that it included a vessel turning basin that now allows larger ships to turn around at Blount Island berths. The port's May 23, 2022 release describes the finished work as 11 miles of the federal shipping channel, from the sea buoy to Blount Island.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District studied and built the project. The money came through a public and private partnership of five parties: the federal government, the State of Florida, the City of Jacksonville, JAXPORT, and SSA Atlantic, the private partner that runs the container terminal on Blount Island. JAXPORT describes it as the first project of its kind in the United States to include funding from a private business.

The federally authorized project is 13 miles long and was split into four contracts, A through D. The current funding model covered the first 11 miles, contracts A, B and C, according to JAXPORT's project page, which lists their status as follows.

One difference between the two agencies' pages is worth noting. The Corps of Engineers describes the Jacksonville District as increasing the federal channel along the St. Johns from 40 feet to a maximum depth of 50 feet, while JAXPORT describes the completed channel as 47 feet. The Corps page does not explain the difference.

JAXPORT says a deeper harbor is essential for the larger cargo ships moving through the Suez and Panama canals to its Jacksonville terminals.

On its harbor deepening page, the port says a 47-foot federal channel positions JAXPORT as the first U.S. East Coast port of call for fully loaded post-Panamax vessels. The May 2022 completion release adds that the 47-foot harbor lets larger ships call Blount Island and lets ships already calling Jacksonville carry more cargo on board.

The Corps made a similar case in its own words. Its project page calls Jacksonville Harbor an increasingly attractive port to call because of its location relative to the Panama Canal and its rail, water and highway connections, and says more than 50 million consumers live within an eight-hour truck drive of the harbor's marine terminals. Deepening, the Corps says, lets larger vessels use the channel, reducing transportation costs and increasing navigational safety.

Asia trade sat at the center of the port's argument. JAXPORT says it has grown Asian container volumes nearly 100 percent since 2012, that local jobs tied to its Asian business grew more than 57 percent in a five-year period, and that more than 15,000 jobs are created or protected by the deepening. The port also says its cargo activity supports more than 138,000 jobs in the region and $31 billion in economic impact each year. Those are JAXPORT's own figures, not independent estimates.

Planning ran from a 2005 feasibility study to a February 2018 construction start, and the 11 miles to Blount Island were finished in May 2022.

The dates below come from JAXPORT's May 2022 release and from the milestone table and document list on the Corps of Engineers project page.

The Chief's Report covered the Jacksonville Harbor Channel Deepening Study, known as the second General Reevaluation Report, or GRR II. The Corps record also lists a public meeting and presentation on proposed rock treatment by confined blasting, and the final report, titled the Jacksonville Harbor Navigation Study, Duval County, Florida: Final Integrated General Reevaluation Report II and Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

JAXPORT's two descriptions of the schedule do not agree. Its project page says deepening through Blount Island was completed seven months ahead of schedule. Its May 23, 2022 release says it was completed three years ahead of the original project schedule. Both statements come from the port; neither explains which schedule it measures against.

JAXPORT paired the dredging with berth, crane, paving and power line work so the SSA Jacksonville Container Terminal on Blount Island could serve the bigger ships.

In coordination with deepening, JAXPORT completed more than $100 million in berth enhancements in May 2022 so the terminal could take two post-Panamax container ships at the same time, according to the port's completion release; its project page rounds the figure to $100 million. At the ribbon cutting, JAXPORT CEO Eric Green said well over half a billion dollars in infrastructure improvements had been completed or were underway at Blount Island.

The 2022 release laid out plans; JAXPORT's current SSA Jacksonville Container Terminal page reports what the terminal has now. The two are compared below.

JAXPORT says the terminal's capacity gain is a 150 percent increase and effectively doubles the port's total annual container throughput to about 2 million TEUs. The new Blount Island turning basin is slightly larger than the one at the Dames Point Marine Terminal, which, according to JAXPORT's project page, routinely turns vessels 1,100 feet long.

One limit sits overhead. JAXPORT's terminal page says a project is underway next to the terminal to raise overhead power lines to a total height of 225 feet, with the added clearance for larger and taller ships available by the end of 2026. The same page's specification list gives the air draft as 175 feet, increasing to 205 feet in 2026. JAXPORT's page states both figures and does not reconcile them, so the final clearance should be confirmed with the port.

St. Johns Riverkeeper, a Jacksonville nonprofit, challenged the Corps' state Environmental Resource Permit for the dredging in 2016 and then said it would take the fight to federal court.

According to the group's own July 27, 2016 news release, St. Johns Riverkeeper filed a petition for a formal administrative hearing on April 1, 2016, arguing the permit failed to protect the St. Johns River and its tributaries. On June 27, 2016, it filed a motion asking for an order that the Corps was not qualified to obtain a state permit, citing federal guidance that Corps district engineers should not seek state permits unless Congress has clearly given the state authority to impose that requirement.

On July 26, 2016, the group withdrew the state challenge to the permit for dredging the St. Johns River at Jacksonville. Its release quotes the Riverkeeper, Lisa Rinaman, saying the responses from the Corps and the judge made clear the state permit would not be enforceable against the Corps, and that the group would move its challenge to federal court. That release is the Riverkeeper's account of its own case; this guide does not report the outcome of the federal case because no official source for it was confirmed in this check.

The environmental side of the Corps' study is on the record at the Jacksonville District project page, which lists October 2012 technical presentations on water quality models, circulation and salinity models, and preliminary ecological results. JAXPORT, for its part, says on its project page that environmental modeling and peer review by scores of independent scientists support the environmental safety of the full project design. That is the port's characterization.

Mile Point is a separate Corps project near the mouth of the St. Johns that fixed dangerous ebb tide crosscurrents where the river meets the Intracoastal Waterway.

The Corps describes Mile Point as 5,000 feet of shoreline on the north shore of the St. Johns River, east of the Intracoastal Waterway, where Great Marsh Island and the Mile Point Training Wall divide Chicopit Bay. The crosscurrents there restricted, on the ebb tide, every vessel with a transit draft greater than 33 feet inbound and 36 feet outbound.

The recommended plan combined relocating and reconfiguring the existing training wall, restoring Great Marsh Island, and creating a flow improvement channel in Chicopit Bay. The Corps estimated its total cost at $36.5 million, shared 65 percent federal and 35 percent non-federal, and lists the bid opening as February 13, 2015. The Corps channel deepening page refers to Mile Point as a project it is also completing on the St. Johns at Jacksonville Harbor.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading JAXPORT's harbor deepening and SSA terminal pages, its May 23, 2022 completion release, the Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District pages for the channel deepening study and Mile Point, and St. Johns Riverkeeper's 2016 release.