Partnership underway to protect Texas coast

​AUSTIN – The Texas General Land Office and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are teaming up for the first time to develop a plan to better protect the state’s coast from storms and to speed recovery afterward.

Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush and Brigadier General David C. Hill, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers Southwestern Division in Dallas, signed Texas’ first-ever agreement with the federal government to begin work in this context at the end of August.

The agreement begins the process of developing the Coastal Texas Protection and Restoration Feasibility Study. The study will investigate the feasibility of projects for flood reduction, hurricane and storm damage mitigation and ecosystem restoration along the Lone Star State’s coastline.

More than 7.1 million live along the coast, and the unreimbursed damages from the 2008 hurricane season — when hurricanes Ike and Dolly struck — are estimated to be more than $29 billion.