http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/courier/

Posted: Monday, February 13, 2012 4:00 am

The crowd was modest, but the topic was vital. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, what should be done to restore what the public lost in environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico?

The Department of the Interior, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several state agencies were at Texas A&M University at Galveston recently to hear public comments on the Phase I Early Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment.

All the initial projects are in the other four coastal states, which felt the immediate effects of the spill. Texas will be in line for funding for some of the projects later.
Texans ought to be slow, however, in trying to get pet projects funded. There are bigger issues here.

Scientists are still trying to assess the damage — not just to specific beaches and marshes and wildlife in specific areas, but to the overall Gulf.

It would be good if all five Gulf Coast states could put aside state boundaries for a bit and think of the Gulf of Mexico as a single, common resource. It would be good, in other words, if we stopped thinking about how to get new boat ramps with this pot of money and started thinking about such basic things as water quality in the Gulf.

Perhaps the best suggestion at the meeting in Galveston, given the uncertainty of the damage and the uncertainty of what it would take to address it, came from the Ocean Conservancy: Set high standards for scientific monitoring the damage and restoration efforts. Fund those monitoring efforts adequately.

That is an excellent place to start.

— The Daily News of Galveston County

Special thanks to Richard Charter