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Exhibit A & B

EXHIBIT A

The Houston Post
Sunday, March 11, 1984

"Environmental attorney triumphs over army of Goliaths"

Galveston environmental attorney Robert M. Moore, normally mild of mien, is feeling like King Kong these days.

Moore has just won a resounding victory in a five-year-long court fight that pitted him against an intimidating array of powerful opponents.

They were wealthy Houston oilman and developer George Mitchell; a battery of attorneys for Mitchell from Vinson & Elkins, one of the nation?s largest law firms; the Army Corps of Engineers, and two attorneys from the Justice Department.

Moore?s heady success came in a March 1 ruling by U.S. District Judge Hugh Gibson that froze Mitchell?s? development of a 188-acre "Venetian Canal" subdivision on West Galveston Bay. The ruling also sent the Army engineers back to their calculators.

Gibson in blunt language rebuked the corps for "abdicating" its responsibility by granting a permit for the $60 million waterfront development without even preparing an environmental impact statement.

The jurist, in a summary judgment, told the corps it will prepare an environmental impact statement -- and the EIS will consider the cumulative impact of such past, present and future developments on West Galveston Island.

Until the corps completes an acceptable EIS, the judge continued in force a preliminary injunction, issued by former U.S. District Judge Finis E. Cowan in 1978, suspending work on the new subdivision in Pirate?s Cove.

The development on Eckert?s Bayou would cut a network of canals through a wetlands area to serve 240 waterfront lots. The banks of an early canal, dredged before the injunction, eroded and silted the bayou, a breeding and nursery area for shrimp and other seafood.

At one time during the long case, Moore was representing a Galveston homeowner in a second suit against the corps. The corps had refused the homeowner a permit to save his eroding back yard by replacing a 150-foot-long bulkhead -- but had granted the permit for the infinitely more disruptive Mitchell development.

While Moore had asked for a summary judgment upholding his position, the defendants had also requested a summary judgment dismissing Moore?s suit. So Moore?s long wait for Gibson?s ruling was a nailbiter.

Gibson is regarded as a conservative judge with no special sensitivity to environmental issues. He has upheld the adequacy of a corps EIS on the proposed Galveston superport (a ruling later reversed by an appeals court). And earlier this year he refused to stop the corps from dumping dredging spoil in the East Matagorda Bay.

"But his decision in this case couldn?t have been better if I?d written it myself," Moore exulted. "I thought I had died and gone to heaven."

The attorney views Gibson?s ruling on cumulative impact as a landmark decision that "sets a precedent and model for environmental groups everywhere that are interested in barrier island preservation."

Gibson noted that both the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had urged the corps to do an EIS considering the cumulative impact of continuing development on the barrier island?s wetlands.

He also noted the corps? own regulations require it to give "great weight" to the views of the fishery agencies.

But the corps maintained in legal arguments that it could only evaluate individual developments in issuing permits. The corps also concluded the Mitchell development was not related to any future developments by Mitchell or others on West Galveston Island.

Gibson, however, ruled there was ample evidence of planned future subdivisions by both Mitchell and other developers.

"The Mitchell project is clearly related to other past, present and reasonably foreseeable future developments on West Galveston Island," Gibson ruled. "The corps therefore abdicated its responsibility under NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) by failing to properly consider cumulative impacts. . ."

Mitchell, ironically, is also the developer of The Woodlands north of Houston, a "new town" project that is correctly considered a showpiece of sound environmental planning.

Moore said Mitchell at one point told him he had spent $500,000 on the lengthy lawsuit over the corps permit.

Moore, who represented a group of island property owners and fishermen, said he pursued the long and complex case without any fee because of "my commitment to the world as a naturalist and environmentalist."

He figures that at the usual legal rates, he would be entitled to about $350,000 in legal fees for the 3,000 hours-plus he spent on the case. Instead, he said he would up spending about $4,000 of his own money.

"But in my 20 years as a lawyer, I?ve never gotten as much satisfaction from anything as from this case," Moore said. "It shows what can happen if you have a commitment and stick to it."

Moore is now optimistic that the corps, working under the judge?s guidelines, will decide the Venice-style subdivision should be denied a permit after all.

EXHIBIT B 

"The Cradle of Life"*
by
Bob Moore

"It was on one of those beautiful days in early January of this year when it all began. Standing along my shoreline on that early Saturday morning, the Sandhill Cranes were leaving their roost behind Starvation Cove and a gentle northeast wind brought their "lift-off" calls over to my doorsteps. Walking toward the bayou with my third cup of coffee, I saw that a typical "winter low tide" had followed the hard "Norther" we had had just a few days before. These extra low winter tides are made even lower by the sustained north winds, and push the bay waters farther out into the Gulf, and naturally draw the water at my home further out from the shore towards the middle of the bayou. The naked pilings supporting my pier with their barnacles exposed looked like a loading ramp in some remote region of the desert. This picture made me instinctively think it would be a perfect day to gather oysters. But the few remaining oysters in our little bayou that have not already been killed by the dredging silt, have been placed "off limits" by the Texas Parks and Wildlife.

This was the same kind of day some twenty-two years ago that we would come over from Bermuda Beach with an old galvanized washtub and gather a bushel or so of oysters to take back home, shuck, and then share with our neighbors on a winter's afternoon. We ate the oysters as we shucked them, then fried some, broiled some, leaving the smaller ones for a big pot of "oyster stew." Like many of us who have enjoyed the pleasures of West Galveston Island for so many years, those recollections brought back nostalgic memories of both family and friends.

Concrete rock, known as "rip rap," had been dumped years ago along this shoreline to help stop the erosion. The rocks were now all stripped bare by the low tide. An old metal hot water heater thrown in for erosion protection was half buried in the sand. It was covered with dead oyster shells which had attached themselves to the metal container many years ago. They had long been dead, choked to death from filtering the fine silt that was suspended in the water from the dredging further south in the bayou. In between several small areas of this rock, green shoots of "Spartina alterniflora" marsh grass, also known as "smooth cordgrass," had pushed their way upwards in an effort to reach sunlight. I instinctively put my coffee cup down, assumed the position of digging oysters on my knees, and gently started digging and removing the rock from around these spartina shoots. The thought went through my mind that if all of the rocks along the shoreline could be removed, perhaps this grass would "take off" and flourish again as it had in the past years. It was obvious that the rocks had not been an effective barrier to stop the erosion. I could see very clearly that the erosion was continuing to move closer to the corner pilings of my home. It was painfully clear to me that something had to be done.

One of my hobbies while raising my children on Eckert's Bayou was to learn about the functions of the freshwater and saltwater wetlands here on our Island, and to try to teach my children about the importance of these wetlands. I knew that the saltwater wetlands had been referred to as "The Cradle of Life" by many marine biologists who had begun to discover their important functions back in the early Seventies. We learned by our experiences of fishing, crabbing, oyster gathering and just observing the tremendous varieties of ducks, herons, egrets, coon, turtles, and possums that the marshes along this bayou and West Bay certainly were entitled to be called "a cradle of life." These coastal marshes produce massive quantities of vegetation, more than any other ecosystem, surpassing even the most productive wheat fields of Kansas. The decomposition of the upland freshwater grass known as "Spartina patens," along with the saltwater "Spartina alterniflora, produce a "detritus," which is a debris resulting from the decaying grasses that gradually wash down and percolate into the lower areas of the saltwater marsh. The nutrient in this detritus forms the fundamental food web for all of the marine food that we as humans enjoy, such as shrimp, crabs, and all of the commercial and sport fish found in West Bay. This detritus collects around the bottom of the "spartina grass," appearing as a blackish or dark brown sludge. Single-celled plants and animals known as "zooplankton" and "phytoplankton" abound in this salt marsh soup. These little single-cell animals are the "mother's milk" of the shrimp larvae, and that of the redfish, flounder, and speckled trout, are carried and gently nestled within this marsh grass by our higher spring and fall tides. So the shrimp larvae eat the single-cell animals, and the hatching fish eat the larvae and post larvae shrimp, and the bigger fish eat the small fry and small shrimp, and it continues on up the "food chain" to produce those pretty pictures we enjoy seeing when someone is showing off their trophy fish. It is always humbling for me to reflect, as I did on that early Saturday morning, how the Creator had set this entire process in motion way back before "man" had even been created.

The idea quickly came to me that if I could remove all of this concrete rock from the shoreline and use it as a "base" to create the foundation for an oyster reef further out and parallel to the shore, that perhaps we could again have a flourishing oyster crop in Eckert's Bayou. But I knew that the elevation of the oyster reef would have to be high enough to allow the oysters to escape the silt. If this "berm of rock" would trap the sediment and the eroding dirt off of the shoreline, perhaps the edges of bayou could be raised to that critical level of 1.5 feet above mean high tide, and 1.5 feet below mean high tide, and this would support the growth of the smooth cord grass. This grass would just naturally come back in time, but we could accelerate its growth by transplants. And with an oyster reef next to a blanket of Spartina marsh grass, we could produce more shrimp, which would feed the flounder, trout, redfish, and crabs in the bayou. Then came the moment of truth: "Bob, do you have any idea of how much work and effort you are talking about?" But immediately following came the thought that: "Rome wasn't built in a day" and "the China Wall was built one brick at a time." But the clincher was the wisdom of Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." Knowing that we would have many similar days during the month of January, my immediate reaction was: "I had better get started now."

After wearing out several pairs of cotton gloves, the perimeter line of all of the rocks that had been dug out by hand that day stretched from one end of my property line all the way across my neighbor's lot, a distance of almost 200 feet. Small oyster spat had already attached to many of the rocks, and they would become the "seed stock" for the building of "the oyster reef." The rocks stacked easily once they were pulled, dug, and pried out with a crowbar, and my remaining questions were: "How many more days would this take?" and "Will my back hold out?" Also, I knew that while the water was way out, I also had to take the time to measure and draw a sketch of my plan, for all of this work would require a U.S. Army Corp of Engineers' permit. It was a long and wonderful day, one of those days when you have that good bone-tired feeling from seeing the results of your labor.

Some former neighbors who work for the National Marine Fisheries Service gave me the reading materials for the specific guidelines that would make my plan work, and at the same time, meet all State and Federal laws. It would take 18 truckloads of "approved" dredged sand from Isla de Sol, hauled to me by Robert Nance; it would take about 100 sacks of fresh shucked oyster shells, which I had to haul over several weekends in a row from Mike's Oyster Shack on Bolivar Peninsula, to sprinkle over the rock perimeter; it would take several sacks of ready mix concrete to prepare a "slurry" to pour over this porous rock/oyster shell dike, to ensure that the wave action would not wash away the dredged sand nor the Spartina grass which would eventually be transplanted into the area between the shoreline and the oyster reef; it would take almost 1000 sacks of a specially prepared "Sacrete" to lay on top of each other like bricks, to keep the shoreline from eroding any further. It would take Don Webster and three of the men of Webster Marine, their backhoe, along with myself and two friends from Mike Flinn's Plumbing, to rake, wheelbarrow and grade the sand in between the shoreline and the oyster berm. This was all completed in three long days in June. And when the low summer tides came in July, through the advice and counsel of Nancy Webb and Eddie Seidensticker of the U.S.D.A., Natural Resources Conservation Service, we were able to obtain "Spartina alterniflora" marsh grass from the Houston Lighting & Power Co., that had grown from seedlings for many of their mitigation projects. Finally, after one more full day of transplanting all of the grass in place, I was able to draw my first great sigh of relief!

My neighbors next door, Betty and Byron Everts, participated with me in this joint project, and my only remaining work during July was to keep the grass alive by watering it with 5-gallon buckets of water scooped from the bayou.

During the last two weeks of July, my major concern was that the heat and the dryness caused by the extra low tides would kill the grass. I would rush home every day in the evenings to work as a "one man" bucket brigade with two 5-gallon buckets, one in each hand for balance. After about 10 days of gently "watering down" each of the 400 plants, one of my good friends Kirk Driver was watching me work one evening. He took pity on me and brought me a pump that would allow me to "hose in saltwater" from Eckert's Bayou. From tide charts obtained from NOAA, I knew that if we could keep the grass alive until August, then the normal and higher tides would return and relieve me from this "intensive care program." Sure enough, HURRICANE ERIN ushered in the regular cycle of normal tides, along with its unusually high tide. Everything held together, and now the grass is regularly washed and saturated by the normal tides.

With the help of Jane Boslet, a biologist in the Regulatory Branch of the U. S. Corps of Engineers, two friends who work for the National Marine Fisheries Service, and helpful people from the State Land Office and Parks and Wildlife, we made it! What a relief to see this first phase of the project completed.

One of my guardian angels and a good friend is Roberta Christensen. She watched this work progress from the beginning and always gave me encouragement when it looked as if I had "bitten off more than I could chew." She is delighted in enjoying the results, and we have shared many good times recently walking along the shoreline, observing all of the "little critters" streaking about in the clear shallow water where they take refuge from the "big critters." Baby rock crabs, as small as a nickle, inch their way from between the rocks. It is especially fun to watch the tiny Blue crabs, no bigger than a small fingernail, scoot back into the bayou as the tide goes out through the "three gates" required by the National Marine Fishery Service in the Corps' permit. Finger mullet and mud fish make the oyster berm a favorite walkway for the Great Blue Heron, Great White Egret, Snowey Egret, Tri-colored Heron, Reddish Egret and the Night Heron. Sometimes a Louisiana Red Heron will drift by in the evenings just as the sun goes down. An Osprey will occasionally use a tall pole erected on my pier to lunch with a huge mullet impaled between his claws. When the tide goes out, sand crabs invade the newly planted marsh grass during the night by the hundreds, burrowing holes in search of their food, which is dead organic material around the roots of the grass. They work in two shifts; one shift during the day and, one night shift. Their work in drilling holes in the "ooze" helps to irrigate the marsh grass, and their body waste is fertilizer for the marsh grass. The White Ibis and the Clapper Rail, or "Marsh Hen," feast on the overabundant sand crabs, the Ibis using its long curved beak to probe down into the holes, while the "Marsh Hens" catch the "fiddlers" when they carelessly move out of their holes. What a kaleidoscope of shapes, colors, and sounds, all working together like a well-orchestrated symphony, all balancing their survival with an intricate dependency on each other, all relying on the Great Conductor to sustain them. From such scenes, faith springs! And you can clearly see that man is the only threat to their survival.

Roberta and I enjoyed watching the seeds grow from this "alternating flower," which is evergreen throughout the year. The spartina develops heads of seed, like heads of rice in a rice field. The marsh grass has continued to flourish and expand, eventually covering the entire area. We have created a small, but nevertheless important "cradle of life." It certainly will not compensate for the continuing loss of our coastal marshes due to dredging and erosion. It has already "done some good" on this small bayou, as an encouragement for others to do their own projects. Three (3) other projects on this same shoreline have been designed and permits obtained to add an additional 500 feet of Spartina marsh shoreline. This type of shoreline erosion control is far less expensive than a bulkhead, and it has the potential for helping to replace the massive destruction of our wetlands in the Galveston Bay complex since the 1950's. We should all work to do all that we can to save and protect these beautiful natural grasses, which literally hold our "giant sandbar Island" together, and without which the West End of our Island would disintegrate and eventually wash away.

One day in the middle of June, one of my friends looked at me while I was resting on my shovel and said: "Bob, at your age, do you really think that you will ever see the fruits of your work, considering the time that it will take for it to develop into a fully producing marsh system?" I smiled and told him the story I heard many years ago in East Texas about an old man planting some peach trees, and a little boy came up to him and asked: "Mister, why are you planting those peach trees? Don't you know you will be dead before the trees begin to blossom." The old man replied: "Son, all my life, I've been eating peaches off of trees grown by other people. I just thought I would plant a few trees so that someone like you could be sure to have some peaches to eat while you are growing up."

And when my friend began to smile, I said: "Besides, this kind of work is so good for me, I feel like the Good Lord will let me live to be a 100."

© by Bob Moore on August 7, 1995 Revised November 15, 2000
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