NEIGHBORS BLAME BAYPORT WORK FOR BLOCKING BAYOU
By Ella Tyler

Pine Gully, a tidal creek that flows through Seabrook into Galveston Bay, is blocked by a sandbar and is filling in with silt. Neighbors blame both conditions on construction on the Port of Houston's Bayport container facility. However, the Port claims that the sandbar is natural and will clear itself and that the silting is a result of erosion of a nearby channel.

The bayou runs through the City of Seabrook's Pine Gully Park just a short distance south of the Bayport construction site. Under normal conditions, the water is clear and free flowing. According to a complaint filed on Sept 9 with a variety of regulatory agencies by attorney Jim Blackburn, the bayou's main stem is blocked by a sand bar between Todville Road Bridge and a choked side creek. No water flows through the 600-foot-long sand bar and there is standing water where water used to flow. Nearby residents are concerned about the increased risk of flooding and worried about mosquitoes breeding in standing water.

Seabrook resident Sally Antrobus, of the Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association, notified the Houston office of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in July that sediment discharges had built a plug of silt that was blocking Pine Gully's flow. Antrobus said there was no response in July, but TCEQ representatives have looked at the area twice in the past week, prompted, she believes, by a referral from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission.

Last week's Seabrook City Council meeting was dominated by residents' complaints about the creek, Antrobus said. City manager Bo McDaniel said he had sent a letter to the TCEQ with photographs showing the rise in water levels in Pine Gully. In recent pictures, it looks more like a lake.

In a prepared fact sheet, the Port of Houston Authority stated that it had investigated the complaint using civil and coastal engineers and hydrographic survey experts, and that it had consulted with Harris County Flood Control District personnel. The fact sheet says, "PHA's personnel observed that the sand bar material in Pine Gully was medium grained sand and was deposited in a shallow bar across the natural channel over a distance of several hundred feet."

The PHA reports that aerial photographs taken over the past forty years show that sand bars periodically form and apparently erode in Pine Gully and that survey data from 2002 suggests a sandbar across the gully was present at that time.

It also reports that the material that has been excavated since April is stiff clay and silt that flowed into the excavation. The excavated material was placed on land and the contractor has installed turbidity curtains. It also notes that the dredging is occurring near the historic Red Bluff area, so named for the color of the soils. The color of the material excavated does not resemble the material deposited in Pine Gully.

The Port report says that silt fencing is in place for a site that is being cleared and that grass buffers the site from drainage ditches.

The Port report concludes the conditions in Pine Gully are not the result of its work and that the sandbar will clear itself naturally in the near future.

Photographs attached to Blackburn's complaint letter show sediment-bearing storm water running off the Bayport Site and a sediment plume washing along the bay shoreline.

According to Antrobus, "Choking the bayou's flow and suffocating its cordgrass marshes are offsite damage and are against federal law. That's why we notified the EPA." She said that GBCPH is considering filing a lawsuit against the Port.

Blackburn's letter requests better controls for the capture of sedimentation, a clean up of sedimentation in Pine Gully, and monitoring Pine Gully to prevent a reoccurrence of the problem.

TEXAS BIONEERS CONFERENCE TO MEET AT ST. THOMAS

The Texas Bioneers Conference will be in Houston, October 14 - 16, at St. Thomas University. The conference offers solutions to problems growing out of environmental and cultural issues, including social justice, community and the human spirit. Bill McKibben, Thom Hartmann, Diane Wilson, and other speakers at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, Calif., will be shown via satellite. Local speakers include Rosie Zamora, who will talk about nearby wilderness areas; Pittman McGehee, who will define spiritual ecology; Helen Terry of Niamoves; and Sara Gish, who will describe her "I Can Fly" workshops. Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael, will answer the question, "Is There Hope for the Future?" Health insurance, economics for social change, urban watersheds, the green sanctuary program, and chemical exposure are other topics that will be discussed.

There will be a free full-day session for youth and educators on Oct 13. Registration before Oct 1 is $100 for all three days. Work exchange and scholarships are readily available and encouraged. This will be the third Texas Bioneers Conference. It is presented by Blackwood Educational Land Institute. Sponsors include the Citizens' Environmental Coalition, Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association, and the Nature Conservancy. For more information, please see http://www.blackwoodland.com or contact Cath Conlon at cathbkwood@aol.com or (713) 768-3422.

BAYTOWN NATURE CENTER GETS NEW LOOK

There was a ribbon cutting ceremony Wednesday for the new entrance at the Baytown Nature Center. The 450-acre center had been making do with an entrance drive behind the Little League Park and a guard shack. It now has a visitors' center, restrooms, staff offices, an information desk, and space for exhibits. A waterfall enhances the entry. A new entrance and road off Bayway Drive have been built. There is a gazebo and native plant garden. The Nature Center, which opened in 1995, is operated by the City of Baytown. It occupies the site of the former Brownwood Subdivision, which fell victim to subsidence, then to flooding from Hurricane Alicia in 1983. More than 300 bird species visit the Nature Center each year.

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BOOK REVIEW: "TWILIGHT IN THE DESERT: THE COMING SAUDI OIL SHOCK AND THE WORLD ECONOMY"
Matthew Simmons, Wiley, 422 pages, ISBN 047173876x.
Reviewed by Ella Tyler

After reading "Twilight in the Desert", it is easy to understand why Matthew Simmons' thesis, that we cannot continue to rely on Saudi Arabia for plenty of oil, has achieved substantial credence. Simmons is CEO of Simmons and Company International, a Houston-based investment bank that has specialized in the oil industry for 30 years. Even if you did not know that Simmons bank has served as an advisor on more than $62 billion worth of transactions and that he is an advisor to the Bush administration, this lucid, meticulously detailed book makes it clear that Simmons knows what he is talking about.

The book examines the entire history of the Saudi oil industry from even before the first well was drilled in about 1935. Simmons discusses the wells and fields in such detail that they become animate, rather like racehorses.

He contends that Saudi Arabian oil production must decline because almost all of its production comes from a few super fields that have been producing for more than 50 years. He explains that as oil is pumped from the ground, pressure drops in the field or water often enters the field and contaminates the oil. The cost of production increases as a result of these events. Proper management of the fields may have prolonged their life but, for a variety of reasons, they have been overproduced.

Simmons confronts the many myths about Saudi capacity, including a discussion of the reputed oil glut of the late '90s. He also examines the change in the economic climate of Saudi Arabia as it moves from being a lightly populated country of many wealthy people to its current heavily populated state and rising unemployment.

Simmons reviewed more than 200 technical papers to compile the facts in the book. It is not a fast read, but it is absolutely understandable by someone who is neither a geologist nor an economist. There are enough details about personalities and real life effects of changes in oil prices to keep the reader engaged.

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