Category Archives: Sustainability

The Open Space Opportunity

Sustainability, ,

The subject of “nature deficit disorder” has become de riguer in any meaningful discussion of urban planning. Most clearly enunciated and defined in Richard Louv’s Last Child Left in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, the topic continues to be vigorously debated and the principles promoted (for another take on the subject see Stephen Kellert’s Building for Life: Designing and Understanding the Human-Nature Connection). Hurricane Ike’s storm surge may have presented Galveston with an unexpected opportunity to now address what has been a chronic deficit related to the connection of our inner city children, particularly those from the poorest families, and the outside world.

A recent article published on the website Children and Nature Network addresses this topic powerfully. The author (Jonah Lehrer) states the following:

Although Olmsted took pains to design parks with a variety of habitats and botanical settings, most urban greenspaces are much less diverse. This is due in part to the “savannah hypothesis,” which argues that people prefer wide-open landscapes that resemble the African landscape in which we evolved. Over time, this hypothesis has led to a proliferation of expansive civic lawns, punctuated by a few trees and playing fields. However, these savannah-like parks are actually the least beneficial for the brain.

In a recent paper, Richard Fuller, an ecologist at the University of Queensland, demonstrated that the psychological benefits of green space are closely linked to the diversity of its plant life. When a city park has a larger variety of trees, subjects that spend time in the park score higher on various measures of psychological well-being, at least when compared with less biodiverse parks. “We worry a lot about the effects of urbanization on other species,” Fuller says. “But we’re also affected by it. That’s why it’s so important to invest in the spaces that provide us with some relief.” When a park is properly designed, it can improve the function of the brain within minutes. As the Berman study demonstrates, just looking at a natural scene can lead to higher scores on tests of attention and memory. While people have searched high and low for ways to improve cognitive performance, from doping themselves with Red Bull to redesigning the layout of offices, it appears that few of these treatments are as effective as simply taking a walk in a natural place.

But where do Galvestonians “walk in a natural place?” If you are relatively affluent, and live on the west end, there are wonderful outdoor resources such as the beaches and Galveston Island State Park. If you live in the central city, the choices are more limited. Inner city park space is lacking, and many of the parks that do exist are poorly designed and managed.

Ike’s storm surge, though, now offers the central city an interesting opportunity to develop more urban open spaces and neighborhood “pocket” parks. Most neighborhoods will be left with significant holes or gaps from homes that must be removed (i.e., where the owners lacked the funds to rebuild). Of course there will be an opportunity for significant in-fill development. But what if some of these lots could be developed for inner city parks?

Given the importance of urban open spaces to the viability of neighborhoods and quality of life in a community, Galveston must quickly develop an urban open space strategy by which these central city properties can be better utilized. My vote is for parks.

Ted Eubanks

The Ike Dike

Sustainability

In the aftermath of Ike there has been talk, once again, about protecting the island with a levee. This surfaced after Carla in 1961 (after which Texas City constructed their levee system), and therefore its return is not surprising. Dr. Bill Merrell (TAMUG) has proposed a series of gates and levees to halt a tidal surge from entering Galveston Bay. Although still in its nascence, this idea has nevertheless already garnered support from local political leaders such as Galveston’s mayor and county judge.

The questions concerning this proposal are numerous. What would it cost? Who would pay for it? What would the environmental impacts be related to the hardening of our coast? Would it work? If so, where exactly does this redirected storm surge go? Wired Magazine recently published an article about how the Dutch are preparing for sea level rise. Many of the remedies being proposed for Galveston have been pioneered in the Netherlands, and therefore a review of their program may give us a better sense of how such an approach would impact us.

Implications of Ike

Politics, Sustainability, ,

Kris Benson has looked at the implications of land use patterns and socio-economic factors on the island before and after Ike, and is generously sharing that information with One Galveston. The following is a preface to the report. Kris has also provided parcel maps to help visualize the data in his report.
Ted

I’m attaching an analysis I developed in support of the city of Galveston’s Long-Term Community Recovery committee’s planning efforts.

I started working on this analysis so that I could better understand the implications of land use patterns and socio-economic factors on the island before and after the storm for my work with NOAA’s Community-based Restoration Program. I also think the analysis has value for the Gulf of Mexico Alliance’s Community Resiliency and Habitat Conservation & Restoration teams.

My appointment to the committee was not explicitly or implicitly related to my professional capacity, but rather to my status as a busybody citizen who regularly attends city meetings and has applied to serve on city committees in the past. While there is a role for NOAA to play in the community’s long-term recovery efforts (perhaps through the Gulf Regional Collaboration Team), the editorial position I take in the notes prefacing the analysis is by no means an “official NOAA” position or recommendation to the committee. None of the data has been peer reviewed or quality checked, so it should not be considered a NOAA work product, and it should be clear that it represents my personal opinion and not an official position.

All that said, I still think it is important to get this information out to the committee members and to the broader community for consideration, and quickly, given the time constraints within which the LTCR committee is working. The data presented here is applicable across a variety of issues the committee is considering, and I’ve tried to highlight the applications most apparent to me in my notes. I look forward to participating in the committee’s deliberations as priorities for recovery actions and funding allocations are developed, and hope that the information presented in the attached document provide useful context for those discussions. Feel free to further circulate this as appropriate, and apologies in advance for cross-postings.

Kris Benson

A Burnham Plan for Galveston

Conservation, Sustainability, ,

The Galveston County Daily News (GCDN) published a guest column on December 30 (2008) in which I proposed that an urban park be created along the seawall. I suggested that automobile traffic be restricted along the seawall (such as between 25th and Stewart Beach) to let the park reconnect the city and its residents to the sea.

As expected, the column generated a flurry of comments and counter-proposals. And, not surprisingly, the article stirred up an, at times, emotional opposition (how will I get to Kroger?). When I first wrote the piece, my thoughts were more along the lines of Daniel Burnham and the 1909 City Plan of Chicago. The Burnham Plan, invested in the physical beautification of the city, established a series of parks and open spaces along the Lake Michigan shore. Apparently the example didn’t reach our founding fathers (who, interestingly enough, were faced with rebuilding after the 1900 Storm at approximately the same time). In contrast to Chicago, our “lake shore” has evolved into a highway.

There is another reason for considering such a drastic move beyond the esoteric notion of “beautification.” Presently our state and community (GLO and the Parks Board) are funding a multi-million dollar beach replenishment project along the seawall. Some 400,000 to 500,000 cubic yards of beach sand are being hauled from the east end of the island to the beaches fronting the seawall. Yet while the state and city are spending millions of dollars to rebuild the beaches, Galveston still bathes its beaches in polluted runoff from Seawall Boulevard.

Along the seawall there is no storm water retention. With every rain storm water washes pollutants off the road, onto the beach, and into the Gulf. The seawall extends well north of the paved road, and therefore the area being drained is far more expansive than Seawall Boulevard itself.

Is it possible to remake the seawall, remove the traffic, and build an urban park? Wouldn’t the removal of the pavement threaten to undermine the seawall itself? I suspect that the same technology being used in green roofs could be modified for a project such as this (an impenetrable layer covering the seawall, overlain with manufactured soil and plants). Interestingly, the present system of drains proved to be a weak link in seawall protection during Ike. Most of the damage to the sidewalk atop the seawall came from storm water undermining the pavement as it rushed through, over, and around the drains.

How would this park help our pollution problem? The park would serve as a buffer, and rainwater, percolating through the soil and plants, would either evaporate or slowly wash, without its pollutants, back to the Gulf. In a way the park would function like the wetlands that border much of the island, allowing runoff to be trapped and cleansed before it drains into the Gulf and bays.

2009 is the Burnham Plan centennial. As Chicago celebrates the occasion, perhaps Galveston can find hope in what can be accomplished with vision, inspiration, and commitment. As Chicago arose from the ashes of a great fire, Galveston can be reborn after a great hurricane. The place to begin is the nexus of the Gulf and the community – the seawall.

Ted Eubanks

Shifting Sands – A View from John Anderson

Politics, Recreation, Sustainability,

For years John Anderson has been warning Galveston leaders of the risk of unbridled coastal development (particularly on the west end of the island), and the futility of engineered solutions (geotubes, beach renourishment) to stave off the encroachment of the Gulf. Ike has generated another round of debates about what can be done to refashion and redirect development on the island. John wrote the following editorial to address these issues that are facing our island again.

Sustainable Development of the Upper Texas Coast: A Call for More Science Input in Post-Ike Recovery

Hurricane Ike was a stark reminder of the risk of living on barrier islands. Yet, even as the loss of human life and material damage are still being assessed, City of Galveston officials and even former US presidents are talking about rebuilding a bigger and better Galveston. The fate of Bolivar Peninsula, however, remains more problematic. What is the future of the upper Texas coast, especially this century, and can Galveston Island sustain the unbridled development that existed prior to Hurricane Ike?

The reality is Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula were already experiencing significant changes long before Hurricane Ike, changes brought about by increasing rates of sea level rise and a limited amount of sand within our coastal system. We have tried to slow the rate of change by placing sand-filled socks along stretches of the beach on both Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula and placing relatively small amounts of sand on isolated beaches all up and down the coast. These projects were not working to slow beach erosion before Ike and they certainly did not help in reducing storm damage on Bolivar Peninsula, where the brunt of Ike was felt.

Yet, it is a virtual certainty that people will continue proposing even stronger geotextile tubes, offshore barriers and other strategies for combating the forces of nature. Before we buy into these panaceas we need to all take a short ferry trip over to Bolivar Peninsula to see what could have been if Ike had not in the final hours before land fall made that faithful turn to the east. Observe that not only did the Geotubes fail, but as they failed they created weak spots along the coast were breaching resulted in even greater damage inland.

See how few houses within two hundred meters of the coast survived the storm. Note that the elevation of the beach was lowered by several feet. And, while you are there, consider the fact that the beach ridges, which provided the only natural protection to waves and surge, were destroyed leaving the barrier lower and flatter and even more vulnerable to the next storm. Those ridges formed over centuries, they are not coming back any time soon. I would advise against encouraging re-development on Bolivar Peninsula by building a bridge to the peninsula.

As you ride the ferry back over to Galveston give some serious thought to the fact that this could have been us. Fortunately, there are some important geological differences between Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula and Follets Island. But that does not mean that Galveston will not see even more devastating storm impact in the future. The question is, how will we prepare for this impact?

If Ike, and other recent storms, has taught us anything it is that there are no quick remedies to combating the forces of nature. The Upper Texas shoreline has been retreating landward in response to natural forces for over a thousand years and it is not in our power to stop the process. So, why do we continue to waste millions of tax dollars on small beach nourishment and other projects that simply do not work? We could build a wall around the island but not without inflicting heavy damage on its natural habitats and ultimately destroying the beaches and wetlands that make the island so attractive. Is that really what we want?

The governing philosophy for the City of Galveston has been that if it raised tax revenue it was good for the island, including allowing people to build houses just landward of the dune line. Many of those houses are now gone or sitting in the surf zone. But many of those houses were being overtaken by the retreating shoreline long before Ike.

Coastal geologists have been calling for City and State government to adopt more realistic coastal development policies for years, but that input has largely been ignored. The City of Galveston was presented with a Geohazards Map for Galveston Island that would prevent building houses too close to the gulf and bay shorelines and would protect valuable natural habitats. This map has been largely ignored in permitting future developments on the island.

Even before Hurricane Ike, the GLO was threatening a dramatic setback policy, perhaps a warning that if the City can’t deal with these issues the state will deal with them. In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike the citizens of Texas have learned that poor development practices on the island will cost them dearly, in particular the huge chunks of state moneys that are needed to pay off the windstorm insurance claims.

I have been reading with interest Eric Berger’s blog on Galveston re-construction and according to my count there is a strong majority of people who feel that they no longer want to see their tax dollars go toward bailing out people who insist on living too near the beach. Galveston will no longer enjoy the luxury of having unsound decisions go un-noticed by those who don’ t live on the island. We are only an island in the geographic sense.

For those who doubt the value of sound science in avoiding catastrophic destruction, I would point to a number of warnings that are stated in my book, published over a year before Ike.

1.That destruction of Highway 3005 on Follets Island and breaching of the island would occur in the next hurricane.

2.Warnings were made to reserve the sand in Big Reef because it would be needed to repair the seawall and other damage after a hurricane. You may recall that this past summer Mr. Patterson had proposed to use that sand to nourish the beach just west of the seawall. Had that been done, much of that sand would have been transported offshore by the storm, a conclusion supported by a number of prominent coastal geologists who visited the site with me shortly after the storm.

3. The vulnerability of Bolivar Peninsula to storm impact was noted. This is due to the relatively low profile of the barrier and its relatively thin sand vaneer compared to Galveston Island. Indeed, there is compelling geological evidence that Bolivar Peninsula was devastated by a powerful storm approximately 600 years ago that destroyed the seaward part of the barrier.

I could go on, but the point here is not to say “I told you so”, it is to demonstrate that it is possible to predict, to some degree at least, storm impact using good science. The question is, will we now continue down a path of denial concerning the potential (inevitable) changes along our coast or will we begin to take a more creative, scientific approach to sustaining the coast for future generations to enjoy.

We can only hope that policy makers will now begin to listen to the scientific community in planning for sustainable development of our coast. While hurricanes raise the greatest public attention to the vulnerability of the coast to change, we must also focus on those changes that are occurring more slowly, over decades. But, these changes are just as real as are those caused by severe storms, and their impacts are just as devastating. We treat the severe traumas but ignore the cancer. Fortunately, the longer term changes are scientifically more predictable than those of hurricanes.

After the Great Storm of 1900 we looked back and asked, “Couldn’t they see it coming?”. Why didn’t they head the warnings? I fear that by the end of this century our grandchildren and great grand children, who will be faced with restoring coastal damage caused by decades of neglect, will be asking themselves “Couldn’t they see it coming?” Did they really think they could reverse the forces of nature?.

 

John Anderson

Maurice Ewing Professor of Oceanography
Department of Earth Sciences
Rice University
Houston, Texas 77251-1892