Map Questions Safety of Galveston Building

By Harvey Rice, Houston Chronicle

Mar. 18–GALVESTON — The first map detailing geological hazards on Galveston Island shows a potential clash between development and the environment.

Several subdivisions already sit in what may be the most dangerous areas of the island — low spots where walls of water bulldozed their way through in previous storms.

More construction is planned in those areas and others despite the threat of storm surges and beach erosion as well as the impact on economically important wetlands, according to findings recently presented to the City Council.

Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said she has asked city planners to give the City Council recommendations based on the map within 120 days for new ordinances to regulate construction.

The Galveston Chamber of Commerce predicts that 3,800 new residential homes will be built this year, and most are likely to be built on the west end of the island where the map shows the most hazardous areas.

Supporters of new regulations say they are needed to protect homebuyers, wetlands that are vital to the shrimp and sports fishing industries, and wildlife and natural features that attract tourists.

“Unless the city imposes some real meaningful regulations on developers, we could destroy the very thing that has attracted people to live here for hundreds of years,” said former Mayor Barbara Crews.

Others view the map with skepticism and see potential regulations as an infringement on private property rights and a hindrance to economic development.

The map may be the first to document the hazards on a populated barrier island, said Jim Gibeaut, who led a team of geologists at the Jackson School of Geoscience, University of Texas at Austin. Formerly known as the Bureau of Economic Geology, the school serves as the State Geological Survey and its director is the state geologist.

The map came about after the City Council sought the advice of geologists out of concern that a surge in construction in recent years might have led to development in unsafe areas and threatened wetlands.

Four hazard zones A three-member panel of geologists, including Gibeaut, recommended that a map be drawn to identify hazardous areas and areas that should be left undeveloped as a buffer for wetlands.

Galveston Island is one of thousands of barrier islands along the U.S. coastline, so called because they bear the brunt of storms rolling in from the ocean.

If a geological hazard map of the entire United States were prepared that assigned hazard ratings, Galveston Island — and all barrier islands — would be in the most hazardous zone, Gibeaut said.

The evidence is the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed 6,000 people, making it the worst disaster in terms of lives lost in U.S. history. “There is no better example of a hazardous place,” Gibeaut said.

The geological hazard map divides the island into four hazard zones: red for imminent hazard potential, yellow for high hazard potential, pale green for moderate hazard potential and dark green for low hazard potential.

The map shows a large development by Centex Corp. under way adjacent to San Luis Pass in one of the most exposed areas of the island. Wetlands are being excavated and bulkheads are being built that will prevent the creation of more wetlands as sea levels rise, Gibeaut said.

Craig Alter, planning and development vice president for Centex Destination Properties, said the company consulted with experts to develop an environmentally sensitive plan that set buildings farther back from the beach than any other development on the island.

He said Centex has proposed a dune replenishment project and has set aside a 300-acre wetlands conservation area.

“We have done our extreme best to protect the wetlands,” Alter said.

A sinking island

Nearly all the development along the beach front west of the sea wall that protects the core of the island is in red or yellow zones, where Gibeaut says development should not occur.

Gibeaut said data from the study used to create the map shows that the island will gradually shrink within the next 60 years as it sinks while sea levels rise and the waves slowly chop away the beach.

“The island is in a squeeze play,” Gibeaut said.

The sea level is rising at about 6.5 millimeters, or about one-quarter inch, a year, based on data recorded since 1909 from a tide gauge at Pier 21 in Galveston, he said. Gibeaut called the rise “scary” in his appearance before the City Council and Planning Commission on March 8.

He warned that the calculations did not take global warming into account because the existing models do not allow for such precise calculations on a scale as small as Galveston Island. “It could be a lot worse,” he said.

The island is sinking under the weight of its silt deposits, and there is evidence that oil and gas drilling also is a significant cause, Gibeaut said.

Meanwhile the waves are eating away at the island at a rate of 10 feet per year in some places, according to the map. Other areas, such as the east end of the island, are gaining, but on the whole the island is losing sand, Gibeaut said.

Construction on the beach areas prevents the formation of new storm-protecting dunes as the coast is eaten away, he said.

Protecting homes, wildlife The wetlands, where shrimp spawn and game fish feed, naturally move inland as the sea level rises and drowns the old wetlands, Gibeaut said. Bulkheads and construction would prevent wetland formation.

At the end of the sea wall that protects the east end of the island and most of the city, a ridge formed thousands of years ago runs west, protecting all but the last five miles of the coast.

Gibeaut said excavation and cuts through the ridge would remove an important protection for homes built behind it.

The City Council asked Gibeaut to refrain from making written recommendations when it hired him to draw the map, but the panel of geologists made several recommendations in its 2004 preliminary report.

Recommendations included restricting construction based on where the shoreline will be in 20 years, restricting construction and excavation in areas where storm waters surge across the entire island, and adopting a wetlands protection ordinance.

Doubt remains as to whether the City Council will adopt strong ordinances in response to the map and recommendations made by a panel of geologists.

Views not shared After Gibeaut’s presentation to the City Council and Planning Commission, Councilman Danny Weber was openly skeptical, asking why geologists had not based the study on more favorable data from the past 25 years and used it for their projections.

“I don’t share the same feeling of doom and damnation they share for the island,” Weber said in an interview. He said the report showed that a sand retention system was needed to preserve the beaches.

Crews, the former mayor, said that city officials have a record of accepting any sort of development because the memory of leaner times remains.

“We are part of a culture that is loath to put on too many restrictions,” Crews said.

“But we do have to change that culture in a sense. … Whether we will, I don’t know.”

harvey.rice@chron.com

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Copyright (c) 2007, Houston Chronicle

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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