A plan by the Gulf Coast Asphalt Company, which is based in Houston, may circumvent the problem of expanding the pipeline that would carry tar sand oil to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. 

But in meetings with local officials, Gulf Coast Asphalt presented a plan to bring Canadian oil in via rail cars, then pump it through a pipeline under the Mobile River to a tank storage facility on the east side of the river.

Casi Callaway, director of Mobile Baykeeper, said the asphalt company presented its plans to her organization. The company proposed bringing in heavy crude from Canada via rail cars, she said. Those cars would be unloaded at a facility near the Alabama State Port Authority.

Corps officials said the company received a permit allowing it to construct a pipeline that will travel beneath the Mobile River, from an unloading facility on the west bank to storage tanks in the Gulf Coast Asphalt tank farm on the east bank. The company was not required to disclose what it would pump through the pipeline to obtain the corps permit, officials said.

Callaway said the company did not disclose what it planned to do with the oil imported from Canada.