For Immediate Release
Contact: Catherine Rogan
Hill and Knowlton, Inc.
713-752-1900
After hours, contact 832-265-7200

GALVESTON, TEXAS (October 11, 2000) - Galveston Bay has a "living laboratory" - a source from which engineers and scientists are learning the best and most efficient ways to restore vital marshland to the area. This is not your typical laboratory, though; it's a man-made, inter-tidal salt marsh spanning 220 acres.

The site, known simply as the "Gorini Marsh," is part of an effort to construct 4,250 acres of marsh in the bay over the next fifty years. Designed by the Beneficial Uses Group (BUG), the new marshes are being constructed by the Port of Houston Authority and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

"The Gorini Marsh is a living laboratory for us to study," says Dick Gorini, chairman of the BUG and former environmental affairs manager for the Port of Houston. "By monitoring and documenting the growth and changes within the marsh, we have learned a number of valuable lessons that are helping us as we work to build new marshes in the area and improve the overall quality of life in Galveston Bay."

Since 1995, when the Gorini Marsh was completed, the BUG has gained significant data that is now being applied to the construction of other project marshes. For example, the group examines how water circulates through channels in and around the marsh, providing information on the channel development essential to plants and wildlife in the marsh. The work at the marsh also has taught the group effective ways of spacing plants and seedlings for healthy vegetation. The BUG continues to turn to its living laboratory for answers to a host of other questions about the creation of salt marshes.

"The Gorini Marsh is working both as a marsh and particularly as a laboratory," notes Gorini. "Vegetation is thick and lush, marine life is using the marsh-water (or "edge") and a variety of birds - including some endangered species - are making their home there."

Other projects, designed by the BUG, and implemented by the Port of Houston Authority and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, include the creation of a six-acre bird nesting and habitat island, the restoration of Red Fish Island in Galveston Bay and Goat Island in Buffalo Bayou, construction of an underwater berm to enhance habitation for a number of fish species and creation of access channels and anchorages for recreational boaters.

The Beneficial Uses Group formed in 1990 to determine environmentally beneficial uses for materials dredged during the expansion of the Houston-Galveston Navigation Channel.

Back to Releases