U.S. House approves massive $31 billion "Ike Dike" project to protect Texas coast from hurricanes

[TexasTowelie]

by Erin Douglas, Texas Tribune

The U.S. House voted to authorize the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin planning for the massive coastal barrier project in Galveston Bay, but funding is not yet secured. The largest civil engineering project in U.S. history would permanently alter the Texas coast.


The U.S. House on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would authorize federal agencies to begin planning for an estimated $31 billion coastal barrier project that would affect hundreds of miles of Texas coast.

The biggest chunk of the project is known as the “Ike Dike,” named after the destructive hurricane that rocked Galveston Island in 2008, a massive concrete gate system that would span a nearly 2-mile gap from Galveston Island to Bolivar Peninsula. The gate project alone would account for at least $16 billion and require 18 years to build, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates. The bill still needs Senate approval.

More than a decade of planning and hundreds of millions of state dollars have already gone into studying the idea to build the Ike Dike along with a series of other Texas coastal infrastructure and environmental projects — from artificial barriers to beach and dune restoration — that would help harden Texas’ shoreline against hurricane storm surge and rising sea levels.

With its bays and estuaries, the Texas coast has thousands of miles of shoreline with beach and dune systems, lagoons, seagrass beds, oyster reefs and tidal marshes.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/09/texas-ike-dike-hurricanes-house-vote/

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Yeah

This is a big deal

[LogicFirst]

2. Let's make a deal.

After Texas Senators vote to ban assault rifles, we will give them $31 billion.