Galveston Green?

TripAdvisor is an on-line travel "community," an aggregation of tourists that share opinions and experiences about when and where they travel. Each year TripAdvisor publishes the results of its annual travel trends survey of more than 2,500 travelers from around the world. Among the top trends are issues that should be of concern (and interest) to the Galveston tourism industry.

This year's survey show that travelers are growing greener. According to the survey "twenty-six percent of respondents said they will be more environmentally conscious in their travel decisions in the coming year. The green trend may be evident in their choice of transportation -- 22 percent said they'll go biking while on vacation this year, compared to 13 percent, last year. Forty-seven percent of travelers plan to go hiking this year, up from 43 percent, last year."

TripAdvisor™ TravelCast is a barometer of what's hot in travel destinations. TripAdvisor engineers have developed a proprietary algorithm that looks at several criteria including changes in search activity and postings throughout the world's largest travel community. The TravelCast then predicts the rising stars in travel.

Consider the follow rising starts in domestic travel, according to TripAdvisor:

1. Sunny Isles Beach, Florida
2. Kitty Hawk (Outer Banks), North Carolina
3. Seward, Alaska
4. Kailua, Hawaii
5. Blue Ridge, Georgia
6. Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania
7. San Marcos, Texas
8. Paso Robles, California
9. Rockport, Texas
10. Copper Mountain, Colorado

According to TripAdvisor,  "the major trends we're observing are that travelers value cleanliness above all else and are becoming more environmentally conscious," said Michele Perry, director of communications for TripAdvisor. "

As you can see above, Texas has two rising stars - San Marcos and Rockport. Rockport is a comparable coastal community that apparently has tapped into the green travel market more effectively than Galveston. 

Let's be honest. Ike has done us no favors when it comes to being clean. We will be hauling trash off of this island for the foreseeable future, and there is little that we can do to accelerate that process. But what about Galveston's commitment to being a green community, a green destination? Surrounded by such natural riches, surely Galveston has the potential for being an iconic green coastal community?

Each morning I exercise by walking the seawall between 25th and Broadway (6th, to be technically correct). We have no bathrooms along the seawall, so the locals choose the beach for their urinal. Each evening there is a line of customers between the beer joints on the seawall and our beach, the urinal. Galveston green?

We allow the non-point pollution from Seawall Boulevard to wash across the pavement and into the Gulf. Rather than view the seawall as our most precious asset, we would rather have Thunder Road. Galveston green?

 We still have entire developments on the west end of the island still on septic systems (you can imagine how they fared in Ike). Even while our bay is in the earliest stages of recovery from the worst natural disaster in Texas history (as measured by damage), we are still considering development on the west end (Marquette, Anchor Bay) that would add insult to injury. Galveston green?

How can a community surrounded by such natural beauty be so oblivious to the color green? I do not believe for a moment that our citizenry is color blind. Given the most recent surveys, Galvestonians are keenly aware of the value of our environment. What is lacking is the community leadership that is willing to take advantage of these remarkable resources that we inherited.

Galveston is unraveling. There are easy and early steps that can be taken to begin to reconstitute Galveston as a sustainable community. Without a blinding, overarching vision of where we are headed, though, and the leadership to get us there, Galveston will continue to decompose. The old adage is lead, follow, or get out of the way. So who exactly is in the lead?

I personally believe that Galveston can be green and still consider gambling.

I personally believe that Galveston can be green and still have a prosperous port.

I personally believe that Galveston can be green and still have a dynamic historic downtown.

I personally believe that Galveston can be green and still have strategically located resort development.

I personally believe that Galveston can be green and have a commuter rail that connects our work force to the economic engine that is Houston.

I personally believe that Galveston can be green and be fueled by alternative energy sources, including offshore wind.

I personally believe that we can be green and still have a world-class nature park and interpretive center at the East End Lagoons.

I personally believe that we can be green and still develop an infrastructure that shows the world how to live in harmony with a coastal environment.

I personally believe that we can be green and still have a burgeoning industry in restorative economics, hopefully developed in partnership with Texas A&M.

Most importantly, I believe that we can have a sustainable tourism industry that can carry our economy forward into the 21st Century.

But I believe that a truly sustainable Galveston is not possible without bold, dedicated leadership that is willing to envision a Galveston of the future, not one mired in the past. Until that leadership appears, we will continue to unravel, Strand by Strand, UTMB by UTMB, Shriners by Shriners.

Ted Eubanks 

Texas, Our Texas

Texas, Our Texas! all hail the mighty State!

Jim Blackburn, environmental attorney from Houston and one of the original guiding lights for the conservation of our bays and coasts, writes an annual coastal update that he distributes in January. I have placed his latest on the One Galveston file server, and it can be accessed here.

John Anderson has written a thoughtful response to the questions raised by Jim, and he has graciously allowed for me to publish his letter, as follows.

Jim

Thanks for taking the time to do the Coastal Update. I always enjoy reading it.

With regard to your question concerning the State's stewardship of the coast, I agree with Bob Moore, the answer is NO. As a long time researcher in Texas coastal geology, let me focus my remarks on a major problem with scientific research. I apologize if it reads like I have an ax to grind, it is not intended to come of that way, but rather to convey a problem in the way we do coastal science in Texas.

If you take a look at published results (peer-reviewed is the only true gauge of high level research in my opinion as it has passed the scrutiny of experts in the field) from scientific research along the Texas coast you will see that Texas lags behind many states, such as Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina and New Jersey, even though we have a lot of coastal real estate and one of the more interesting coasts in the world for investigation of coastal processes. Ours is also the second most vulnerable coast (Louisiana being first) to sea-level rise, subsidence and limited sediment supply. Why then is Texas not a leader in coastal research?

For decades the State of Texas has provided a minimal amount of funding for coastal research. We have done a good job of monitoring coastal erosion and that is important, but it is not science. We know our coast is eroding rapidly, both on the Gulf and Bay side of barriers, but we do not know why, how erosion will vary as the rate of sea-level rise increases, or how we might best minimize these impacts. There is an emerging scientific consensus that tropical storm frequency and magnitude will increase this century but how will that impact our coast? To what extent have humans altered sediment supply and distribution along the coast and in estuaries? These are only a few questions that require immediate attention if we are going to sustain our coast for future generations.

The State spends millions of dollars a year dumping truck loads of sand on beaches, only to have it wash away with the tides. This is unthinkable and reflects the total lack of understanding of the problem by Mr. Patterson and his people. The money spent on such projects would fund a lot of good research on wetlands ecology, sediment transport and other fields. You may not know that the only source of state funding for academic research requires that the grantee be at a State-supported university. This prevents researchers from other states and private universities (yes Rice included) from applying for state grants to work in Texas. The reality is there are relatively few scientists at state universities doing coastal research. The response from Mr. Patterson might be that various state agencies do our research, but if you count the publications over the past ten years from these agencies the number is deplorable given the amount of money that is spent, and most of that work has been done by a handful of good scientists who have somehow managed to prevail under difficult conditions. I have trained some outstanding young coastal geologists in my career who have gone on to universities in other states. They continue to be very active in the field, but not in Texas. So, we train the talent we need, they just can't work in Texas. The final result is that our knowledge of coastal processes, such as tidal inlet dynamics, wetlands growth and development and sand transport within the coastal zone is limited, certainly no where near what it should be for us to answer questions about how our coast will respond to global change.

One might ask, so why not go to NSF or some other funding agency? This is what we have done in the past, but the reality is that NSF views coastal research at the regional scale as something the states should be supporting and most states do fund coastal research. I am not aware of another state that so discourages coastal scientists from from doing research in their state.

Jerry Patterson has his Coastal Coordinating Board, but that body is seriously deficient in scientific expertise. Most are political appointees, which is consistent with Mr. Patterson's way of doing business. Meanwhile, our coast continues to change at a rate that astounds us all and we really don't understand what is happening or what to do about it. We need more scientific understanding of our coast if we are going to protect it in the future, but I am not sure how the needed research is going to be done unless we encourage scientists to cross our borders.

John

John Anderson
Maurice Ewing Professor of Oceanography Department of Earth Sciences
Rice University Houston, Texas 77251-1892

Within my field, sustainable tourism and recreation, I am afraid the the same is true. The best work is being done outside of Texas, with rare exceptions such as Corpus Christi. Those who choose this profession, by necessity, are forced to work elsewhere (me being a perfect example). Given the situation that Galveston faces, one would expect sustainable recreation, tourism, and community development to be helping shape the future of our resurrected community. In my opinion, this is simply not the case. Allowed to their own devices, community interests will focus on patching Galveston back together in the same pathetically vulnerable condition that existed pre-Ike. I can only pray that there are enough of us on the island that can help direct Galveston's future toward sustainability. The Long-Term Community Recovery Committee, under the leadership of Betty Massey, is, I hope, a step in the right direction. But what I still fail to see is the passionate, daring leadership willing to take hold of this situation and shake it into shape.

Time is passing, and we are still worried about who is winding the clock.

Ted Eubanks