Minutes of the Meeting of SJRA
October 19,1995
Attendance: Julie Gilbert, John McDanial, Patsy Goss, Tina
Horstman, Bobbie Lowe, Joe and Dora Sciacca, Carolyn
Hawkins, Thomas MAyo from Congressman Bentsens Office.
1: UPDATE ON BARGE REMOVAL IN RIVER:
Thomas MAyo reported
that barges at Banana Bend Beach were removed by FEMA as a
public nuisance and health hazard; but the Coast Guard has no
money to remove the other barges unless there are hazardous
wastes on board. Our best hope to get teh barges removed is
funding through a law called the Water Reauthorization Act
which will be up for renewal in Congress in January. He
recommended a letter writing campaign from all river rats
to ask Congressman Bensen's help with this bill. We'll get
out a flyer in Rio Villa and Banana Bend with the necessary
information so that we can inundate him with mail at the
proper time. (Ed. note: I'll be posting that information
on this web page also!)
2: UPDATE ON SHIP CHANNEL DREDGING:
Thomas promised to call Linda Shead of Galveston Bay Foundation to find out when
this dredging for widening and deepening the ship channel will occur. He has since called that it will
be 2 years before it begins.
Julie, Jeni and Thomas have agreed to form a task force to keep us imformed on this project
so we won't get surprised when they have dredge spoils to dispose of possibly in our river.
3: UPDATE ON NEW WASTE PIT ON HIGHLANDS SHORES DRIVE:
Diana called that an article in the North Channel Sun indicated that
the county was "restoring wetlands" by dumping waste into sand
in Highlands adjacent to the river. We will attempt to follow
up with details.
4: UPDATE ON PIPELINE RUPTURE:
The Transportation Board announced today that the pipeline ruptured because of the flood.
This may have serious ramifications for the lawsuits against the pipeline companies.
HOW FAST CAN WETLANDS RECOVER NATURALLY FROM AN
OIL SPILL?
Dr. Bonner and his Aggie students are studying the
San JAcinto River for answers... Dr. Jim Bonner of Texas A&M
and nearly 50 mostly senior environmental engineering majors
recently presented their highly technical findings to a Sept.
7th meeting of the Community Advisory Panal to Lyondale and ARCO
Chemical. SJRA Board members were invited to participate. Their
research project on the San Jacinto River which was contaminated
by last October's pipeline ruptures during the big flood is
funded by the Texas General Land Office. Their experiment is
two stages:
1) For the past year, they've been observing how fast wetlands
recover naturally from an oil spill since mechanical removal
by workers and equipment may trample the fragile plants and
do more damage than letting Mother Nature clean up the mess;
and
2) Beginning this fall, they will try to accelerate recovery
through bioremediation intervention, feeding nutrients to the
little microorganismsto make them "super bugs".
Techniques developed through this research on our river
may become the newest method employed in future oil spills
anywhere in the world involving wetlands. They reported that they
are amazed at how much nature has done in the past year. Let's
hope that what they learn from our misfortune helps save other
wetland and rivers all over the world. SJRA has invited Dr.
Bonner and his students to and extensive tour up our river to
the dam; we hope to learn much about the current and future
condition of our river from theur state-of-the-art testing
equipment and their expertise.