LaPorte Ground Site Shipping/Storage

A commercial shipping company is contracted in Houston to handle most (but not all) of our shipping needs:

Central Transportation Systems, Inc.
6000 South Loop East
Houston, Texas 77003
713-731-6200 (office)
713-731-6213 (fax)
800-272 6683 (office)

Two company points of contact:
Debbie Clark, extension 237; shipment coordinator (800-766-2210 direct)
Jann Sandwick, extension 216; sales/assistance

This company will accept your equipment shipment, store it until you need it, and then deliver it to the site when you need it there. At the end of the study they will pick-up your shipment, take it to their facility, and ship it out to where you request. There are, of course, a few rules:

  1. DO NOT SHIP HAZARDOUS GOODS TO THIS COMPANY!!! If there are ANY hazardous materials (compressed gas cylinders of any size; solvents or chemicals in any quantity; radioactive or biological hazmat stuff, etc.), then your entire shipment will be refused and will go into shipping purgatory, never to be seen again. If you have any doubts whether something you want to ship is hazardous, then check with your shipping company before you send it.
  2. The Study will pick up the costs of storage, site-delivery, and site pickup. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR SHIPPING COSTS, BOTH WAYS. CODs will not be accepted by this company.
  3. Please be reasonable with the company concerning delivery to the site and pickup from the site. Plan ahead, considering that the company works normal business hours. They do allow for off-hours delivery/pickup, but at higher cost. Arrange your travel so that you or a member of your group will be on-site to accept delivery AND be there to have equipment picked up. Make no assumptions about other people being available for help with shipments.
  4. We will provide on-site storage for shipping containers, boxes, spares, etc. The on-site storage units are metal sea-containers; they are weather proof, but they are not air conditioned. If you have sensitive equipment that you need stored, make those arrangements with Central Systems; our contract with them covers this activity, as well.
  5. Contact Debbie Clark as soon as you can to make arrangements. She is aware that there will be shipments from all over the country coming in under the Study umbrella contract. She will assign to your group a work order number that will serve as the tracking device for your shipment(s). She will probably also ask all the appropriate questions about shipment size, weight, type of goods (no hazmat stuff, remember), shipping company bringing the stuff, delivery date, and date/time needed at the site, etc., so be prepared. The reference that you should mention is the La Porte Project.

A separate facility is contracted to handle hazardous goods, especially gas cylinders and chemicals/solvents:

URS/Radian
16023 I-10 East, Suite 38
Channelview, Texas 77530
Attn: Gene Krametbauer, 713-406-8839 (digital pager)
or Don Farkas, 713-406-9145 (digital pager)

URS/Radian is one of the industrial partners involved in the TEXAQS-2K study. They have graciously provided a shipping point for our hazardous materials. The two folks listed above do not run this shipping point on a full-time basis; nor will they provide delivery or pick-up service to/from the site. There are some other restrictions:

  1. Since this location is not a full-time manned facility, any time materials are shipped to this location Gene or Don must be notified. You should provide them information about what you ship, what shipping company you use, and when you will ship the goods out. If you use FedEx (or some clone), Gene or Don will need to know if shipment is by 1-day, 2-day, or 3-day service.
  2. Make certain that the shipper you use provides Gene or Don at least one day notice concerning when the shipment will arrive at the facility so that they can be there to accept the shipment. Otherwise your shipment will languish in some yard somewhere, soaking up photons.

There are no contracts to provide compressed gases, cryogens, or other expendables for the study participants, so you will have to set-up your own account and, of course, pay for it. There is a company in Houston that TNRCC uses for many of their monitoring sites, and the rep there has been quite helpful:

Matheson Tri-Gas
2200 Houston Ave.
Houston, TX 77007
713/869-7351
Attn: Larry Boiteaux, 713-867-6290

Larry has agreed to set-up individual accounts for the PIs who contact him and include all the individual accounts under an umbrella that will be used as a means to get volume discounts, if possible. Tri-Gas has virtually any product any of you might want, and it is reported their service is very good. You will need a delivery address for any vendor; use the following:

Site A: 702 North Farrington Blvd., La Porte, TX 77571

Site B: 10725 West Main, La Porte, TX 77571