Article 5

The Galveston County Daily News
June 3, 2007
by Robert Moore
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"A tsunami building up to hit island"

A disaster of tsunami proportions is looming for Galveston Island if the proposed Marquette Development proceeds without an environmental impact statement.

Our West End is already overdeveloped, with a massive inventory of thousands of unsold lots, timeshares and condos. Yet city planning is rushing this gargantuan project through with superficial analysis. The death knell for the remnant of our island is not far away!

We cannot handle our existing traffic. Too many traffic lights and turn lanes onto Stewart Road and FM 3005 will exacerbate our existing congestion.

Hundreds of hotel rooms within the five high-rise towers in this development are planned.

This 1,000-plus-acre development includes many commercial malls and 4,000 individual homes and condominiums that, in all, represent a small city.

Thousands of cubic yards of sand will be dredged to create the largest marina on Galveston Island.

This basin connects with Eckert’s Bayou, the weakest part of our island.

U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent mentioned this critical area on pages six and seven of his order of December 14, 2004, in CA No. G-04-185, stating: “Also, the cumulative impacts analysis does not adequately consider how all of these developments together will affect Galveston Island’s ability to withstand a strong hurricane. While the Nature Society has not pressed this issue, this court knows from its long tenure in Galveston that the potential for the island to be split in two by a hurricane is always something that must be considered.”

A Katrina-type hit at Eckert’s Bayou poses not only the potential for splitting our island but also mass destruction of property and lives while our TWIA windstorm pool is still underfunded!

The developer’s financing for the infrastructure is to be ultimately subsidized through the abatement of taxes for many years through a tax increment reinvestment zone, a statute intended to enable construction of affordable homes in blighted neighborhoods.

City Manager Steve LeBlanc suggests there is no solution to control such developments on the West End because of “private property rights.”

His professional training should have led him by now to Hilton Head Island, an example of a master planned community that prevents this kind of senseless destruction of a barrier island (www.ci.hilton-head-island.sc.us).

And the recent geohazard plan was not adopted by mayor and council into ordinance form to protect the investments of people who would buy into this development. Can anyone guess why?

An ad-hoc group will present to the planning commission at 4 p.m. Tuesday a simple request to abate the issuance of any permit for Marquette until a U.S. Corps permit is first obtained through an environmental impact statement analysis.

The analysis requires all city, state and federal agencies to comment on the cumulative impact that this development will have on other past, present and reasonably foreseeable future developments.

With that report, citizens of Galveston will have the facts needed to finally hold our city officials accountable and to be able to secure our safety and our children’s and grandchildren’s heritage.