Culture Clash Magazine A Venue for Galveston's Free Thinkers

CC: What do you know about coastal wetlands and the impact they have on our island?

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We're losing our wetlands at an alarming rate, and we're losing them because of sea level rise and subsidence, as well as because of the effects of climate change. I do know that our coastal wetlands are important habitats for our birds, plants, and fish. Communities rely on them for subsistence fishing, and they're also an important place where people go for recreation. Our bird-watching community will often use our wetlands areas as great places for birding as well. So they provide a lot of different services for us.

CC: What do you know about coastal wetlands and the impact they have on our island?

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The wetlands offer many things in terms of protection, recreation, and habitat. This is a big nursery for many flora and fauna here on the island. The number one thing I think of when I think of wetlands is resiliency. And that is also what I think of when I think of our Galveston community and our history here on the island. You'll see many people out here fishing, kayaking, and just looking at the wildlife out here, too. So they offer many things, and we are always excited to share this special part of our island with our visitors here in Galveston.

CC: What do you know about coastal wetlands and the impact they have on our island?

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Texas has lost over 50 % of its wetlands since we, European settlement, came to this area. They're one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world. We're losing them faster than forests even. They're super important to our habitat here in our coastal ecosystem because not only do they help us regulate flooding in the area, but they also help us clean our waterways and provide crucial habitat for wildlife and the foundation of a lot of the things we like to eat like shrimp, crabs, fish. We can prevent further loss of our wetlands by reducing how much development happens, especially in the Houston -Galveston area; many building spaces are already developed but not occupied. We can utilize that space instead of building brand-new things. That's a way we can reduce the destruction of our wetlands because development is probably the number one thing that threatens our wetlands. 

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I work in environmental education, and before the job I have now, I worked with Galveston Bay Foundation, which got me connected to the local ecosystem, everything from migratory birds to local birds we have here, pollinators, species in the Bay and Gulf Mexico ecosystem, and wetlands are crucial to those animals. Just like the pollinator plants that grow here that are native to Texas, wetlands are super important for all of the animals that either live here or travel through this area. Galveston Bay Foundation is a great organization you can look into to learn more about wetlands and how you can help protect them and even contribute to planting more. Houston Advanced Research Center is also a great organization that looks into the loss of wetlands and how we can stop it from happening.
 

CC: What do you know about coastal wetlands and the impact they have on our island?

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As far as coastal wetlands go, the main things that I think that they provide to us here in Galveston is the harbor of animals, you know, like I'm a big duck hunter, so ducks, ducks play a huge part in the ecosystem, they take the food from the wetlands. Also, the fish, it harbors a lot of fish, you got crustaceans, you got little sting rays, you got small redfish, small trout, all these kinds of baby fish, and this is where they grow up, and then they grow big, and they move out into the ocean and therefore providing a sustainable resource.

CC: What do you know about coastal wetlands and the impact they have on our island?

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Well, I know a lot about coastal wetlands. We spend most of our time teaching people about coastal wetlands. By coastal wetlands, we likely mean wetlands that occur in estuaries like Galveston Bay. So, we primarily have marshes made of spartina alterniflora, which we call a brackish marsh, and then we have freshwater wetlands inside Galveston Island. Wetlands' benefits are tremendous; 90% of all fish, shrimp, and crabs that humans love to eat begin in a wetland. Wetlands filter all the runoff water from the land; the wetlands filter it before it goes into the bay. So we have a clean bay because the wetlands are filtering water. They also have huge root systems with a lot of dead material. So those root systems hold the land together; they prevent erosion, and then it's a treasury of carbon. Wetlands hold six times more carbon per square inch than terrestrial forests. And then last but not least, because we love to talk about floods and hurricanes, they store a lot of water during flooding events and let them out slowly. So, destroying any type of wetland on planet Earth is a bad decision.

CC: What do you know about coastal wetlands and the impact they have on our island?

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Well, coastal wetlands don't just have an impact here in Galveston. Coastal wetlands impact our entire country. And coastal wetlands are very unique from inland wetlands. We wouldn't have this thriving shrimp and fish industry if we didn't have our coastal wetlands. Without our wetlands, this island would be underwater much more than it is now. Our wetlands are probably the number one most important part of Galveston Island. Last year in 2023, the Army Corps of Engineers, which was in charge of regulating our wetlands and whether you can and cannot build on them, their jurisdictional determination, basically their reach, was cut by the Supreme Court. You can look up the case, but it lost; it left our wetlands without protection from the Army Corps of Engineers. 

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Without that protection, unknowing buyers can come in and build on land either by the bay or by the beach that locals know fills with water. That's what a wetland does. We must increase the protection of our local wetlands and the entire Gulf Coast wetlands. Galveston is a great place to come and fish. Our fish wouldn't have a nursery ground to grow in without our wetlands. Another thing people think about is birding. They bring along a lot of birds to our great migratory path. Many people who aren't from here don't realize that the wetlands act like a sponge. Those wetlands protect us when we get a major coastal storm or big north wind that blows the bay in. That's one reason why houses in Houston had never flooded before Harvey. They lost the protection of those wetlands. They also purify water. They add nutrients to the water to add to the marine food chain, but without them, it would be really, really sad.