News Articles
State of the River Meeting Held
Posted on Feb 24th, 2019
 FOR Vice President Mike Goodson, standing in for the absent President Kirk Wardlaw, reviewed last year’s accomplishments at the State of the River meeting on Sat Feb 23rd held at River Rendezview Party Barn. Ninety friends of the river attended the event.
Mike's list included the Environmental Committee’s public education programs, trash collections of Adopt a Highway and river cleanup, River Ranger school programs, monthly water quality testing, regular Breakfasts on the Bernard, aerial photos of the mouth, boat parades, and updates on reopening the mouth. The progress of which is coming at a snail’s pace, but approaching we are. This was the conclusion of the three speakers involved with the project.
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 RANDY WEBER
US Representative 14th Congressional District of Texas
Congressman Randy Weber stated that in D.C. they were keeping on the Treasury Department to get the permitting done to reopen the mouth. His Lake Jackson office, when asking the powers-to-be about a possible date, received a brief but to-the-point message…“as we said, it will take a few weeks.”
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 DUDE PAYNE
Brazoria County Commissioner
Dude said they are continuing to work to get permits from the Treasury to release RESTORE Act money to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). He reminded everyone that a positive message to help pay for reopening the mouth was sent by Port of Freeport and Brazoria County who committed to 30 years of maintenance dredging to keep the mouth open.
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 CHRIS SALLESE
Special Projects Division, Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation
Chris stated that four different requests have been answered coming from the Treasury’s RESTORE Act for additional information about the project such as type of dredging equipment needed, where dredging material will go, etc. The original application was 600 pages. When approved, the US Fish & Wildlife Service will issue a window of 45-60 days to dredge open the mouth that is likely to be next summer. Also, it is Chris' guess that the Corps of Engineers will not remove the Brazos River West Floodgate because of higher priorities than spending the 125 million dollar removal cost.
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Additional Speakers
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