The Galveston Bay Foundation is celebrating its 35th year confronting the challenges of the Galveston Bay and bringing people together to create a success story.
For 35 years, the Galveston Bay Foundation has brought together people with diverse interests in Galveston Bay to find creative, inclusive and forward-thinking solutions to the challenges confronting the Bay. Facilitating collaboration among a true cross-section of Bay interests is still very much at the heart of the organization today, even as it has grown to encompass many new programs and large-scale projects.
Shortly after Galveston Bay Foundation’s Articles of Incorporation were officially filed with the state of Texas on July 13, 1987, the newly minted organization began working to tackle two issues of concern.
The first was known as the Wallisville Project, a proposed dam on the lower Trinity River intended to create a 20,000-acre lake with potentially devastating consequences for the river delta ecosystem downstream. The other was a planned widening and deepening of the Houston Ship Channel with the residual effect of more than 80,000 acres of Bay bottom getting covered by unconfined dredge material. Neither project proceeded as originally envisioned thanks in part to the work of the Galveston Bay Foundation. The Wallisville Project had to be redesigned in 1990 after bald eagles were found nesting in the area. Both the width and depth of the Houston Ship Channel dredge project were later reduced following an economic impact study funded by the foundation.
After scoring a pair of early victories, the fledgling organization set its sights on establishing programs that would allow it to fulfill its mission to preserve and enhance Galveston Bay as a healthy and productive place for generations to come. Events and programs that originated in the late 1980s and early 1990s such as large-scale marsh grass plantings and the creation of citizen water monitoring teams laid the foundation for their present-day counterparts. Education programs began to flourish in 1991 following the donation of a 26-foot workboat named the Bay Ranger, and the foundation co-sponsored its first major outreach event – the inaugural Bay Day Festival – that same year.
The implementation of an oil spill response plan and acquisition of Galveston Bay Foundation’s first properties – Shipe Woods, Frost-Dean, and Rich Sanctuary – in 1992 further solidified the organization’s profile as a leader in the environmental conservation field.
Today, the Galveston Bay Foundation has grown from its modest roots to an expansive operation with the ability to support several effective programs that have scaled in capacity to meet the demands of the community and environmental needs surrounding the Bay.
With an emphasis on investing in education as a meaningful way to preserve Galveston Bay for future generations, the foundation has developed one of the most robust environmental education programs of its kind, reaching tens of thousands of students each year through both classroom and field experiences.
