Galveston Bay Gets a "C" in Health

GALVESTON, TX — A recent report found that, as far as anyone knows, Galveston Bay is maintaining its health.

The second annual Galveston Bay Report Card was issued by the Galveston Bay Foundation and the Houston Advanced Research Center on Wednesday, Aug. 10.

Overall, Galveston Bay got a "C," a declaration that the bay's health is adequate for now. The report card examines six topics that were identified as interesting to the public: water quality, pollution events and sources, wildlife habitat, human health risks and coastal change.

Want more Clear Lake and Bay Area news? Click here for our free daily newsletter and breaking news

The report found that some aspects of Galveston Bay have improved, water quality increased from a "B" in 2014 to an "A" in 2015. The problems that do exist with water quality, namely increased phosphorous levels, are mostly related to from residential, commercial/industrial and agricultural runoff.

Water quality was the category that received the highest grade. Except for habitat, everything else in Galveston Bay got a "C" and habitat got a "D."

The grade on pollution was riddled with incompletes, primarily because the data needed to truly understand what's happening to the bay isn't being collected.

Despite decades of anti-litter advertising, the state of Texas never got around to creating a standard to determine how much trash is too much when it comes to estuaries. The same problem occurred with getting information about measuring the movement of pollutants, like dioxin, in sediment or trying to find out how many acres of oyster reeefs are in the bay.

For some reason, the state of Texas doesn't believe in keeping track of that type of information. Probably has something to do with a belief in small government.