Exhibit B

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.