The port area encompasses many favorable water-related characteristics. One is the well-defined Port entrance, Belle Pass, which is bordered by rock jetties that extend 2,600 feet into the Gulf of Mexico.

Within this 1,200 foot wide jetty system, the water is 27 feet deep, and the channel located in the center of Belle Pass is 300 feet wide. Inland of the jetty system, within the port, the channel in Bayou Lafourche is 24 feet deep and 300 feet wide.

Pass Fourchon, located in the Port, is 24 feet deep and 300 feet wide. The E-Slip development is 24 feet deep throughout, with widths of 400 feet in the first leg and 500 feet in legs two and three. The Flotation Canal is 24' x 600', and the slips in the Northern Expansion are 24' x 700'.

As industry has moved into deepwater Gulf exploration and development, necessitating larger, deeper draft vessels, the Commission has responded with larger, wider, and deeper channels and is committed to continuing to make channel improvements to most efficiently meet Port users' needs.