- [Jay] Funding for this program was provided by.

- [Chrissy] The J.W.

Couch Foundation.

- [Jay] Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University Kingsville.

- [Chrissy] Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, - [Jay] The Gulf of Mexico Trust.

(light music) - [Chrissy] Threshold Foundation.

(light music continues) - [Jay] Shield-Ayres Foundation.

- [Chrissy] Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation.

Gossamer Gear, Cina Alexander Forguson, Pam and Will Harte.

- [Jay] Helen Alexander, Blair and Wade G. Chappell, Claire Dewar, Cheryl and Paul Drown, Deborah and David McBride, Myfe Moore, Shirley and Dennis Rich, and the Texas Water Foundation.

- [Chrissy] For more information and a complete list of funders, please visit chasingthetideseries.com.

(light music continues) - [Jay] The Texas coast.

- [Chrissy] from the Sabine River to the Rio Grande.

- [Jay] It's diverse.

- [Chrissy] It's industrial.

- [Jay] It's a buffer.

(waves crash) - [Chrissy] A gateway.

(light music continues) - [Jay] And it's rapidly changing.

- [Chrissy] We're gonna show it to you as we walk every inch.

(gulls squawking) (light music continues) - [Jay] This is "Chasing The Tide."

(waves lapping) (light music continues) (light music continues) - Where did we stop over?

- Back, over there.

(light music continues) - We're at Sea Rim State Park, and it's about 15 minutes before 8:00 am, October the 2nd and we're getting ready to walk towards McFadden Beach.

And we did about 12 and a half miles yesterday from Texas Point here.

- [Camera Operator] And how you feeling?

- Pretty good today.

Yeah, yesterday was hard for sure.

It was hot.

It's still hot here in Texas, along the coast.

You feeling all right?

- Yeah, it was harder than I expected.

It was hotter.

Well, our expectations for today are that we're gonna walk 23 miles or so through McFadden Beach, which is, about 20 of that, 20 miles of that is a new beach section.

So they've taken sand just offshore and built a whole new beach.

So it's a newest beach in Texas, so there probably won't be many shells.

There won't be much trash.

And it'll be fast moving through that section and hopefully we get through it in a day.

- Yeah.

- It was that night.

I did not sleep well at all.

- Yeah.

- You?

- I mean, I did 'cause I was tired.

(both laugh) And it was a long day.

- Yeah.

- But I, like, I knew.

It was rough.

And I know, I remember looking at our team and we could see it in their eyes that they weren't sure we were gonna be able to do it.

(light music) - Yeah, let's go, okay.

- All right, we're gonna go.

- Yeah, it's 7:45, all right.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) When we reached McFadden Beach, we encountered a problem.

As part of the Salt Bayou restoration plan, McFadden was getting a makeover, 17 miles of new beach and dunes, which was great, but it also meant that the beach was closed to the public while under construction.

Our crew couldn't follow us to provide support, meaning we'd be walking 20 miles in some pretty serious heat.

We decided to skip McFadden and figure out a way to come back, even if it meant having to return later on in the trip.

(upbeat music continues) - [Chrissy] So we jumped about 20 miles down the coast to a very special place, High Island.

(lively music) It is often the first thing a migrating bird sees as it makes its way across the Gulf of Mexico from the Yucatan Peninsula.

(lively music continues) A welcome oasis on an all night journey across the Gulf of Mexico.

Most birds migrate at night.

The stars in the moon help with navigation.

Without the daytime thermal fluctuations, the atmosphere is more stable and it is easier to maintain a steady course.

High Island sits atop a pressurized salt dome that provides just enough reprieve from the salty soil to allow a variety of trees to grow.

An average of 2.1 billion birds cross the US Gulf Coast each spring as they head north to their breeding grounds.

(lively music continues) The Texas coast has five times more migrant birds detected than any other part of the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Of the 338 species listed as Neotropical migrants in North America, 333 have been recorded in Texas.

Our state is critical to the survival of millions of migrating songbirds.

(light music) (water splashing) (light music continues) Houston Audubon and the Texas Ornithological Society help conserve this important migrant stopover.

It's also an essential nesting area for colonial waterbirds.

It provides shelter, food, and water for hundreds of species of birds as they make their biannual treks.

(birds singing) - [Jay] Even more impressive, Texas is only midway in their spring and fall journeys.

Take the Scarlet Tanager for instance.

Some begin their spring migration in late March as far south as Bolivia and reach their breeding grounds up to 6,000 miles away in the Boreal Forest of Canada by early May.

(light music continues) Months after they're born, these songbirds will make their way entirely on their own to wintering grounds in Central or South America, despite having never before made the journey.

(light music continues) Unlike waterfowl or shorebirds, they don't migrate in flocks or learn migratory patterns from their parents.

They rely partly on genetics, the sun, stars, landmarks, a keen sense of smell, and the earth's magnetic field to navigate.

(light music continues) - [Chrissy] According to a 2019 study published in the journal "Science", the Western Hemisphere has lost a third of its migrating bird population since 1970.

A total of 2.5 billion fewer birds showing up on our beaches, backyards, and forests.

(light music continues) (light music continues) (birds singing) While High Island has long served as a refuge for birds and an attraction for birders from around the world, other parts of the upper coast have not fared as well.

(waves crashing) Highway 87 is the primary artery down the coastal community of Bolivar Peninsula.

It's a delicate ribbon winding down what is, in some places, just a sliver of land threatened to be overtaken by the gulf at spots like Rollover Pass.

- As we made our way down the beach, the home set behind low dunes or none at all.

So we've been walking on Bolivar Peninsula now for the last four or five hours.

At one point there wasn't any beach and so we had to get up on the road and a barrier between the road and the ocean just to make miles.

And now the last couple of hours, the tide has come in.

And so you can see here that the tide's coming up and there's basically not any more beach between the ocean and these houses here.

And so we're having to weave our way around the, the island here just to make miles.

But we really are truly chasing the tide here because there's really nowhere else to walk except right on the tide line.

You can see the, the dunes here.

This is all private land and homes, and we're chasing the sunset too 'cause we've only got about an hour and a half left and we're trying to make close to 20 miles today.

- [Chrissy] Highway 87 has been washed out a number of times, and the Texas Department of Transportation is raising a section of the road so it's passable during high tide.

And when Bolivar is threatened by hurricanes, 87 is the only way out.

And there's not much standing in the way of the full force of the Gulf.

In September, 2008, Hurricane Ike made a devastating landfall on the upper coast.

A strong category two hurricane, Ike's storm surge was over 14 feet on Bolivar, destroying about 3,500 homes, nearly 80% of the community's residences.

It caused 85 Texans to lose their lives, and an estimated 29 billion and damage.

- [Reporter] Up to their doors in sand.

It's amazing to see pilings, I mean, just nothing there.

And then right behind the nothing there is a house.

And it's like, how did that happen?

How did, how did one or four houses wash away and the houses behind it are still there?

That's amazing.

- [Jay] Homes were blown apart and wiped off the peninsula.

One resident described it like a war zone.

The aftermath of Ike was difficult to say the least.

Aid for rebuilding and insurance claims were slow to come through.

Five years after Ike, only 41% of all the homes had been rebuilt.

Today, Bolivar Peninsula has rebounded and seemingly become more upscale in the process with lot prices in the high five figures.

The losses associated with Ike, as well as the vulnerability of communities and industry on all of Texas shoreline have led to a push to fortify the Texas coast.

(light music) - [Chrissy] Part of the multi-billion dollar coastal Texas project stretching from Sabine Pass to the Rio Grande, the Galveston Bay Storm surge barrier system will stretch from High Island to San Louis pass.

Approved in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, the Ike Dike will use 34 billion in federal funding and up to 18 billion in state funds to build a coastal barrier that combines natural and manmade resources to protect the upper coast.

- We are responsible for building and eventually maintaining and operating the largest public works infrastructure project in the history of the United States.

Basically, we're gonna start, say at about High Island heading west.

You got about a 40 mile stretch there where we, we gonna build additional beach, about 250 feet of beach.

And we also gonna include a dune system.

Right now, the proposal is for double dunes, about a 14 foot dune, natural looking dune with a 12 foot dune in front of it.

So double dunes and 250 feet of beach for the 40 mile stretch or so all the way down to Boulevard Roads.

- [Jay] As the sun set, we decided to prove to our crew, and more importantly ourselves, that we could come back from a rough start.

So we walked all day and ran in the dark to hit our target of 20 miles, only 19 more days of the same.

The main landmark as you reach the end of Bolivar Peninsula is unmistakable, the Bolivar Point Lighthouse.

It was built in 1872 and survived several devastating hurricanes, including the 1900 hurricane and hurricanes Rita, Ike, and Harvey.

The lighthouse was taken outta service in 1933 and sold to the Boyt family by the federal government in the 1950s.

The family has set out to restore the lighthouse, which is one of only two iron lighthouses left in Texas.

Gulf waters are at the lighthouses doorstep.

What does or doesn't happen in the next decade to protect the region will determine whether or not the lighthouse remains a relic of the past or a beacon for the future.

(uplifting music) - We gotta close off that whole system.

And the idea is to keep hurricane storm surge, the pre-surge out, the 24 hours, 30 hours prior to the storm coming in.

We want to keep that high tides and the pre-surge out of Galveston Bay.

Okay.

To do that, we gotta basically be able to close that whole two plus mile stretch.

The idea is we're gonna have a number of gates, like 17 gates that we call sluice gates, like a guillotine that are gonna lower down.

And they're gonna always be in an open position until right before the storm when we decide we gotta close it up.

Those gates are like 300 feet long, each gate, 300 feet long and probably 60 plus feet tall in an up position.

And right now we, we are looking at a number of options as the type of gate itself.

Some of the newer ideas that are coming from some of our Dutch partners at TU Delft, they came up with a concept called an arch gate, which is very dramatic looking.

It basically is in an enough position, is a big arch that the gate is like 1200 feet wide at the base and 600 feet tall at the top.

It helps in that, we gotta think of restrictions to navigation and commerce, whatever system we put in there.

But this gate would be in an up position like this, and then it would be lowered down across the channel and drop down across.

So when it's in an up position, you'd have this big archway.

It'd be sort of like a, I don't know, better to call it a tourist attraction with an observation deck up top and, and all like that.

And like I'm saying, 99% of the time it's in an up position.

Very dramatic entryway into the, the Port of Houston and this area, be a very dramatic picture.

- So our bay is an estuary.

We get a lot of fresh water that flows into the bay.

It sort of recycles and circulates and all that water flows out into the Gulf of Mexico.

And so the infrastructure to anchor any kind of floodgate in place is what we're concerned about.

We're not concerned when the gate is closed 'cause that'll happen so infrequently.

But they have to build a lot of islands potentially and pour a lot of concrete that will then restrict flow between Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

And the original design by the Corps of Engineers, they suggested that the flow is gonna be restricted permanently by 30%.

And we and others said, "Hey, that sounds like a lot, you know, can you do better?"

And the Corp did go back and redo some redesigns.

And their latest design, which I understand is still in flux and may change, will permanently restrict flow by 10%, right?

So 10% is way better than 30%, but they still haven't analyzed what that means for the health of the bay.

- This part of Texas affects the United States.

I mean, we're talking about the major source of petroleum refining products, jet fuel, chemicals, plastics, various types of building blocks of our modern economy.

So to me, when I think about hurricanes in this part of the world, I'm thinking about one disruption of those industries and also the pollution that that would bring because there's like, you know, 4,000, 5,000 storage tanks, about half of which are highly vulnerable.

And you get one of the containers that we have two container ports around here, a lot of containers, those are like battering rams.

And if they get caught up in the surge, they'll run into the side of the tank, rupture it, and you'll have oil or hazardous substances spill into the bay.

- One of the biggest things we had to do in this 15 years since Hurricane Ike on the national level was to try to convince people to start thinking proactive and not just be reactive.

The cost of the project is tremendous right now, but we can pay for it with one storm.

If, if for instance, we have a storm in the next couple years that shuts down the, this, this Houston ship channel area and the Port of Houston, we might have a hundred billion dollars in damage and then turn around on top of that when now we're gonna build the project.

All the ports all on, along the east coast are looking at the same exact type of projects as we got.

They've been in contact with us.

How did you do this?

How did you get to the point you're at now?

We're a couple of years ahead of them, but right behind us, we gonna see probably at least five, maybe six projects very similar to this.

People have got, got the message, now we gotta do something because of what's going on in, with climate change.

And we gotta be prepared for it.

- With climate change, the rate of change is faster than anything that certainly in the human past that we've experienced.

We're very worried about wetlands.

The wetlands on the coast, you know, they get their feet wet every day.

That's kind of, you know, the tide comes in and goes out, but they don't, they're not supposed to be surrounded by water all the time.

And with sea level rise, we'll have that level rising.

And if there's no sediment coming in to keep the marsh growing upwards with that, the marsh will drown and we'll lose the, essentially the building blocks of the coastal fishery.

And so we've got the coastal fishery at stake, we've got the economic base for the United States, comes out of these chemical plants and out of these petroleum refineries, at least for the foreseeable future.

And that's at stake.

So it, it's really the future of this part of the world for sure that's at stake here at Galveston Bay.

- Our concern with restricting flow basically falls into three buckets.

The first is that our tidal prism will be smaller because there's less flow in and out of Galveston Bay, which we'll lose a lot of wetlands.

The second problem has to do with restricting flow in and outta the bay in terms of water quality.

You know, we live in a region of 7 million people and it all drains to Galveston Bay, yet we still have pretty good water quality in Galveston Bay in no small part because we flushed the bay into the Gulf of Mexico.

It sort of dilutes into the Gulf of Mexico and, and we have clean water in Galveston Bay.

So when you start to restrict that flow, you just don't know what the tipping point is.

And so will we start to get algal blooms?

Will water quality decrease?

We don't know, but we need to analyze that and we should know before we construct any big structure like this.

And then the third problem really has to do with all the critters, right?

So Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico work together in terms of seafood production.

So most of our fish are finfish, or crabs or shrimp spend a portion of their lifecycle in the bay and then a portion in the Gulf of Mexico, and they float back and forth on the tides.

What does restricting flow do to that natural cycle?

And I, I don't think anybody can tell us that yet.

I think the desire to protect the region is a good desire, right?

How do we protect the region?

What's the best way to do it, right?

But there's so many different ways that we could be doing that, ranging from natural infrastructure to really hard infrastructure.

My understanding is that they can't build something that would protect from more than a hundred year flood.

And in our region, we think the a hundred year is a category two storm.

So we hear about the massive damage that will happen if we get hit by a category four or five.

Yet the proposed coastal barrier wouldn't necessarily protect us from a four or five.

So should we be spending $57 billion to protect us from a category two storm?

Which really we, we get category two storms and we don't need all that much protection.

People are, you know, they're impacted for sure, no doubt about that.

But people rebuild and it's sort of the resilience of being a Texan.

Even if we move forward with things like the coastal barrier or the Galveston Bay Park plan, 'cause those solutions are not short term solutions.

They're not likely to be on the ground for 20, 25, longer depending on funding.

And so even if we're moving forward with these big picture solutions, these silver bullet solutions, we should be looking at our facilities on the Houston Ship Channel and understanding which ones are the most vulnerable and trying to mitigate that vulnerability in the short term.

Like if these facilities present such an environmental danger from a massive storm, why do we accept that risk right now?

Why are we saying, oh yeah, there's a big risk, we'll protect it in 20 or 25 years, but we're not gonna do anything about it between now and then.

So common sense in my mind would be to, let's go analyze what facilities really need to build up their own interior protections and insist they do so.

Don't just sit here waiting for this long-term solution to materialize because it may never actually materialize because it's so costly and so complex.

The bay itself provides a lot of direct jobs.

We've got our shrimpers and our crabbers and our oystermen, recreational fishing all over the place.

But ultimately it's a quality of life issue.

You know, if we have a Galveston Bay that's not as healthy, doesn't have clean water, doesn't have the fish, people aren't gonna wanna live here.

And so you got to balance all of this together.

Galveston Bay is the biggest estuary in the state of Texas.

It's the seventh largest in the country and it's super important to a lot of people.

And it's super important from an economic standpoint and from a recreation standpoint.

And so, you know, we need to do both.

(waves lapping) (light music) - [Chrissy] Getting a little wet.

- [Jay] Yeah.

- Where are we?

- We're about five miles from the end of Bolivar Peninsula.

And we covered 20 miles yesterday and had the tide push us up into the dunes, the base of the dunes.

And started out this morning and it got a little bit late start because it's been raining and lightening the last four or five hours.

- And we are hoping to get ahead a little bit on Galveston today.

Maybe about five miles or so.

We'll see.

(lively music) Finally we made it down to the ferry at Bolivar Roads.

(lively music continues) It's been operating since 1934 and there's been talk of a bridge connecting Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula for some time, maybe even a road built on top of a dike.

But until then, everyone takes the ferry.

(lively music continues) We were sad to say goodbye to Bolivar, but excited to see the next barrier island, Galveston.

(lively music continues) Next time on "Chasing the Tide", (person speaking native American language) - We're finding this red wolf DNA, floating around in these animals.

(soft music) - This is gonna be a hoot.

I expect this to be my last great adventure (soft music continues) - [Jay] Funding for this program was provided by.

- [Chrissy] The J.W.

Couch Foundation.

- [Jay] Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University Kingsville.

- [Chrissy] Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, (light music) - [Jay] The Gulf of Mexico Trust.

(light music continues) - [Chrissy] Threshold Foundation.

(light music continues) - [Jay] Shield-Ayres Foundation.

(light music continues) - [Chrissy] Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation.

(light music continues) Gossamer Gear, Cina Alexander Forguson, Pam and Will Harte.

(light music continues) - [Jay] Helen Alexander, Blair and Wade G. Chappell, Claire Dewar, Cheryl and Paul Drown, Deborah and David McBride, Myfe Moore, Shirley and Dennis Rich, and the Texas Water Foundation.

(light music continues) - [Chrissy] For more information and a complete list of funders, please visit chasingthetideseries.com.

(flute playing)