For Immediate Release
Contact: Tiffany Heikkila
Hill and Knowlton, Inc.
713-752-1900
713-752-1930 fax
theikkil@hillandknowlton.com

GALVESTON, Texas (May 1, 2003) – Officially deemed “American Wetlands Month,” May is a time to focus nationally on conserving and preserving the coastal environment and wildlife. No group in the United States is more observant of the importance of protecting coastal wetlands than the Beneficial Uses Group (BUG), which has helped design a 50-year effort to support the nation’s wetlands. The effort includes constructing 4,250 acres of inter-tidal salt marsh in Galveston Bay using dredge material from the Houston-Galveston Navigation Channels (HGNC) expansion project, making it the largest wetland construction project of its kind in the country.

The BUG, a coalition of agencies created through a partnership between the Port of Houston Authority (Port) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), is the first group to endeavor such an ambitious project. Having spent the past decade providing guidance to the Port and the Corps on pioneering construction and monitoring techniques that successfully created numerous environmental enhancements to the Bay, the group has provided a national model from which others can learn and hopefully replicate.

“The BUG has spent the last 12 years providing guidance to help turn dredge material into revitalized marshes and is consequently delighted that wetlands are receiving national attention throughout May,” said Dick Gorini, chairman, Beneficial Uses Group. “We hope that our early successes in this long construction process, and the lessons we are learning, encourage other communities to join us in preserving this vital resource.”

The importance of the wetlands that the Port, Corps and BUG are constructing is immense. Although approximately 95 percent of marine species in Texas bays and the Gulf of Mexico depend on wetlands during some phase of their life cycle, those wetlands have been declining according to a study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Roughly 800,000 acres of the state’s coastal wetlands have disappeared since the 1950s – from approximately 4.1 million acres to fewer than 3.3 million acres at the beginning of the 1990s – a reduction of almost 20 percent. Salt-water marshes also declined in size by almost 70 percent – from 165,000 to 52,773 acres – during the same period.

“The creation of additional wetlands provides greater opportunities for education in Galveston Bay – they will be valuable assets to both teachers and other environmental education efforts in the area,” said Joan Walker, executive director of the Upper Texas Coast Water-Borne Education Center, which provides teaching vessels for hands-on field classes in Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel. “We are excited about having the opportunity to show the wetland construction project during waterborne education field classes.”

Through their environmental work, the Port, Corps and BUG are making a better bay. In addition to creating approximately 4,250 acres of inter-tidal salt marsh, they are also constructing an underwater berm in the Gulf of Mexico to enhance fish habitat, creating access channels and anchorages for recreational boaters and partially restoring Goat Island. Redfish Island was partially restored in late 2002, and a six-acre bird nesting and habitat island, Evia Island, was constructed in 2001. Most of the improvements to the bay are made with materials dredged during the current expansion and maintenance of the Houston Ship Channel.

The Beneficial Uses Group is a subcommittee of the Interagency Coordination Team (ICT) that was formed in 1990 by the Port and Corps to determine environmentally responsible uses for materials dredged during the expansion of the Houston-Galveston Navigation Channels project.

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