Bay Area Edition | January 2023

TOP STORY

COST OF THE COASTAL BARRIER

The Coastal Barrier project’s funds will be divided among the gulf defense, bay defense and ecosystem restoration parts of the project with most of the fund projected to be spent on the main gates protecting from storm surge.

The ve counties that make up the Gulf Coast Protection District are Chambers, Galveston, Harris, Jeerson and Orange counties. The coastal barrier project aims to protect these counties from storm surge. COUNTIES TO DEFEND

ORANGE COUNTY

HARRIS COUNTY

SPENDING BREAKDOWN About 65% will be federally funded and 35% locally funded by the Gulf Coast Protection District, which comprises Chambers, Galveston, Harris, Jeerson and Orange counties.

LOCAL FUNDING OPTIONS The GCPD will seek state funding during the 88th legislative session, which started Jan. 10, to cover its portion of the cost.

CHAMBERS COUNTY

65% FEDERALLY FUNDED

35% LOCALLY FUNDED

TOTAL COST $34.4 BILLION

JEFFERSON COUNTY

22%

69%

GALVESTON COUNTY

GULF OF MEXICO

Ecological Restoration

Bay Defense System

Gulf Defense System

SOURCES: GULF COAST PROTECTION DISTRICT, ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERSCOMMUNITY IMPACT

Gulf Defense System

to take about 15-20 years, and initial steps such as construction contract bidding and nal design could be taken in 2023 now that the NDAA is passed, Braden said. “The scale is unprecedented,” Braden said. “It’s a massive compre- hensive regional mitigation strategy to address catastrophic storm surge.” Paying for the barrier The Gulf Coast Protection District was founded in 2021 by the 87th Texas Legislature for the purpose of acting as the nonfederal sponsor of the Coastal Texas Program. The GCPD covers ve counties by the Gulf Coast: Chambers, Galveston, Harris, Jeerson and Orange. Sunstrum said the federal legislation authorizing the construction for the Coastal Texas Program will not include funding; the appropriation of funds is an additional step that Congress would need to approve in another bill. “The more money that we get from the federal government, the faster the construction will be,” she said. “And that obviously will impact costs just because of time passing and … rising cost of materials and all the other fac- tors that go into ination.” The maximum requested cost of the overall project is about $34 billion, Sunstrum said. The orig- inal cost shown in the Coastal Texas Protection and Restoration Feasibil- ity Study pitched to Congress in 2021 was $28.9 billion, but Sunstrum said this number increased over time due to ination.

Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership and a member of the GCPD, said the federal government would be respon- sible for providing 65% of the funding for the protective elements of the proj- ect, while the GCPD would be respon- sible for the other 35%. “We’re not asking for all the money at one time; we can’t build all of it at one time,” Mitchell said. GCPD ocials have previously mentioned to Community Impact the possibility of utilizing resilience bonds to produce the local funds to match federal spending. These bonds are a way for large compa- nies along the coast to reimburse the cost for the project: Companies in the area with facilities that could be impacted by storm surge would benet from the project and pay to support it. However, Sunstrum said there are no plans to issue bonds at this time and that the GCPD will seek state funding instead during the leg- islative session. Sunstrum said she doubts Congress will appropriate the entire $34 billion up front, but she is happy to see strong bipartisan support of the issue. “It kind of sells itself,” Sunstrum said. “All of these entities that are involved are really dedicated to see- ing it through and seeing it imple- mented in the right way, and I think that’s a unique thing that’s really important for a project of this size.” Widening the channel The other major construction in

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$19 BILLION Bolivar Roads Gate System

U.S. Congress in December for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the sec- ond coming from the scal year 2023-24 President’s Budget in February. “If they get the remaining funding that’s needed, they’ll keep on sched- ule. If the project isn’t funded, then the project will start to slow down,” Jenkins said. History of the coastal barrier The Coastal Texas Program con- sists of more than 15 projects out- lined by a six-year study led by the Army Corps of Engineers. The program features a mixture of projects to reect and absorb storm surge as a collective part of a coastal barrier, said Michael Braden, ACE Galveston District mega projects division chief. Projects protecting interior land include the Dickinson and Clear Lake gate systems and pump stations. “The Coastal Texas Program is a series of dune and beach renourish- ment, gates, levees [and] pumps. … It’s a multiple-line-of-defense, multiple-component system that works together,” Sunstrum said. The various projects can be con- structed sequentially as funding becomes available: Some sections of the program could take only a few years to nish, while others might only be completed after over a decade of construction, said Carlos Gomez, ACE deputy public aairs chief. The timeline for the program is expected

$4.4 BILLION Galveston/Bolivar beaches and dunes renourishments $80 MILLION South Padre Beach nourishment

and sediment management

Bay Defense System

$4.2 BILLION Galveston Ring Barrier System and sea wall Improvements $1.9 BILLION Clear Lake Gate System and Pump Station $400 MILLION Nonstructural measures $1.1 BILLION Dickinson Gate System and Pump Station

$140 MILLION Surge mitigation

7 8 6

Ecological Restoration

$3.1 BILLION Ecosystem Restoration

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