below Lafitte, initially by the Texas Company in 1935, prompted the need for greater depths for river barges to access the fields from the GIWW and Gulf of Mexico. Beginning in 1949, Jefferson Parish presented a plan for enlarging the Barataria Bay Waterway channel to 12 feet in depth by 125 feet in width. U.S. Congressman Hale Boggs backed a bill that provided federal funding for the project, which was authorized in the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1958. The deepening and widening of the Barataria Bay Waterway was completed in 1960, representing the second instance of widening and deepening the proposed route of the Jefferson Seaway. Concept resurrection In 1933, the Westwego Canal and Company, Inc. presented its "Prospectus of New Orleans Ship Canal, Inc.", a document signed by its president, William T. Nolan, and vice president, F. Rivers Richardson. The prospectus specifically resurrected Capt. Cowan's proposal from a half-century before and included a map titled "Location Chart - New Orleans Ship Canal Incorporated", showing a straight path for a ship channel between the Mississippi River at Westwego and Grand Isle. The prospectus referenced attached letters from John Devereaux O'Reilly, "builder of the Industrial Canal and locks," a reference to the IHNC. The prospectus acknowledged the success of Eads jetties but noted that commerce had since outgrown its limitations. Three potential routes were noted. The first referred to the MRC's idea to dredge a channel east from Pilot Town. The second was through the Industrial Canal and then through Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne out into the Mississippi Sound, a concept that was a forerunner to the MR-GO. The third route was the focus of the Prospectus, which was the Westwego–Grand Isle route. In May 1936, Louisiana Senator Jules G. Fisher of Jefferson Parish filed a resolution urging for the digging of a ship canal that would connect Grand Isle with the Intracoastal canal and the Westwego canal. Competing federal deep draft projects In 1943, two separate deep draft projects were presented by the Ship Channel Committee of the Jefferson Parish Police Jury and by the Dock Board of New Orleans to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The New Orleans proposed route, referred to as the "Alexander Seaway", was east of the Mississippi River, and named for Col. Lester F. Alexander, a marine contractor, member of the Dock Board and chairman of the Tidewater Development Association, serving as