The Texas Coastal Protection and Restoration Plan

The Texas Gulf Coast needs a comprehensive Coastal Protection and Restoration Plan to reduce significant risk and damages to public safety, property and environmental resources from storms and erosion. In 2008 after Hurricane Ike came ashore in the Galveston area, an on-going feasibility study, the Sabine Pass to Galveston Bay Study (addressing significant shoreline erosion in Galveston and Jefferson Counties), was put on hold at the request of the non-Federal Sponsors. The entire study area was significantly altered both physically and economically. The northern portion of the study area (Bolivar Peninsula) was completely devastated. With the changes that occurred due to Ike, the study was practically back to day one. Recently, interest in the study with a new sponsor, the Texas General Land Office (GLO), and a larger study area including Orange, Jefferson, Chambers, Galveston, Harris and Brazoria Counties, has been initiated. In addition, the Texas Coastal Protection and Restoration Plan, authorized under Section 4091 of WRDA 2007, would initiate a study for the protection and restoration of the entire Texas Coast. The study, patterned after the successful Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program study, would identify a programmatic plan. Analysis would include identification of potential structural and non-structural measures for reducing risk and development of a strategic roadmap for pursuing solutions to be built in the future. It would provide the most cohesive, single approach to efficiently protect the coast. The GLO has expressed its intent to be the lead non-Federal sponsor of this study.