GALVESTON, TEXAS, March 8, 2000 - Dredging will start this month in Upper Galveston Bay as the Houston Ship Channel Expansion Project moves between Morgan's Point and the Five-Mile Cut Channel. Boaters and others in the Upper Bay should be on alert for buoys marking the construction area. Bay users also may want to be on the look out for wildlife attracted to the new marshes built from the dredge material. The Upper Bay project contract will continue until late 2001, according to Dalton Krueger, project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Deepening and widening of the Ship Channel is currently underway in Upper Buffalo Bayou, between Boggy Bayou and the Lynchburg Ferry crossing, and in Lower Galveston Bay. Work in the Upper Bayou continues until late summer and Lower Bay work continues until late this year. The jetty and entrance channels segments were recently completed.

Mr. Krueger explained that virtually all material dredged from Galveston Bay during the Houston Ship Channel project is put to environmentally beneficial uses, thus making it a first-of-it's-kind project. Soon, this contract will result in the creation of the new 185-acre inter-tidal salt marsh near Atkinson Island. Pipes will transport dredge material to form levees and the marsh itself. Once the silt and clay settle, engineers shape the marsh and cultivate it with plants to provide habitat for fish and other wildlife. A similar project is underway in the Lower Bay, just north of the Bolivar Peninsula. At that location, a 322-acre marsh formed with dredge material from the channel expansion project will become a spawning ground and nursery habitat for fish and crustaceans, as well as an important habitat for birds and other wildlife.

The marshes under development are part of a plan created by the Beneficial Uses Group (BUG) to use the dredge material in environmentally responsible ways. In addition to the salt marshes, which will eventually cover a total of 4,250 acres, the BUG's plans include the creation of a bird nesting and habitat island, restoration of Goat Island in Buffalo Bayou and Redfish Island in Galveston Bay, construction of an underwater berm to enhance habitation for fish species and creation of access channels and anchorages for recreational boaters.

The bird nesting and habitat island, the restoration of islands, the underwater berm and the access channels will be completed by 2003. The construction of marshes is a 50-year project. Within the next three years, 322 acres of new inter-tidal salt marsh will be created in the Lower Bay, 185 acres in the Upper Bay and 310 acres in the Mid Bay. Over the next twenty years , an additional 420 acres of marsh will be added to the Lower Bay, 630 acres to the Upper Bay and 630 acres to the Mid Bay. The final 2,000 acres of marsh will be built between the years 2020 and 2050.

The Beneficial Uses Group formed in 1990 to identify and implement environmentally responsible uses for materials dredged during the expansion of the Houston Ship Channel.

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