By JOHN PECKTimes Staff Writer
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A push is on for a new river port just south of Huntsville International Airport that would receive barge shipments of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel and possibly alternative fuel sources such as ethanol.
The plan would require a 200-foot-wide barge canal through a portion of Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge to an unloading dock. The petroleum would be piped from there to the airport and to a proposed tank farm somewhere near interstates 565 and 65, according to a document obtained by The Times.
Huntsville officials pitched a port along the Tennessee River there several years ago but without an identified user. The project was scuttled when Wheeler officials refused to grant permission for a barge canal through the refuge.
The savings from having a port terminal to unload and pipe fuel would benefit not only the airport, which uses 1.7 million gallons of aviation and jet fuel monthly, but all of North Alabama, which gets an average of 1,000 tanker trucks (7.8 million gallons) daily from Birmingham, Tucker said.
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