WEEKEND NEWS LINKS:

Galveston Bay “Ike Dike” May Be Among Sandy’s Casualties

Posted byHoumanitarian
Top: Proposed “Ike Dike” project.
Bottom: Proposed NYC barrier project
Proposed in 2009 and covered by Houston Chronicle here

(Eric Berger, Houston Chronicle)
Any lingering hope of building a large, protective dike to mitigate storm surge along the upper Texas coast may have died with Hurricane Sandy’s landfall near New York.

It’s been four years since Hurricane Ike crashed into Galveston Island, causing $29.5 billion in damage to the Houston area and spawning the “Ike Dike” concept to protect the region’s rapidly growing coastal developments and business interests along the Houston Ship Channel.

Now Sandy is the hot new storm, diverting attention and perhaps any possibility of federal funding away from the Texas Gulf Coast for New York, hard hit by Sandy’s surge and winds.

“That seems likely to me,” said Bill King, a member of the now-inactive Gulf Coast Community Protection and Recovery District established by the state to study large surge protection projects around Houston. “Nothing really seems to be happening anyway, but it’s a little discouraging that if the country does get moving on doing something about sea barriers, we’re not going to be on the front of the line.”

After Ike, Texas A&M-Galveston oceanographer William Merrell proposed the “Ike Dike,” a project inspired by Dutch sea barriers that would protect Galveston Island, Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Bay from devastating storm surges. Despite a recent trip led by Merrell to study the 2,300 miles of structures the Netherlands has built along its coast to keep out the North Sea, the idea of a massive, $6.6 billion sea barrier has gained little traction in Houston.

Now the discussion has moved to New York. Stony Brook University oceanographer Malcolm J. Bowman and a colleague, Douglas Hill, also inspired by the Dutch, have drawn up a $6 billion plan to wall off New York from the sea.

“The time has come,” Bowman told the Associated Press after Sandy’s landfall. “The city is finally going to have to face this.”
(More on this story at the Houston Chronicle)

OTHER LOCAL AREA HEADLINES:

STATE, NATION & WORLD: