WETLANDS MONTH -- BAHIA GRANDE, 2: Renewal in the Lower Laguna Madre ... on Passport to Texas
________________________________________________________________________________________

PTT from TPW and the Wildlife Restoration Program

Cut off from gulf waters, Bahia Grande, a unit of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, changed from productive tidal wetland to nuisance dust bowl. The tide started to turn for this basin with the new millennium.

It was not until 2000 when the Fish and Wildlife Service acquired the land surrounding the Bahia Grande Basin that you could start doing something -- because the Fish and Wildlife Service was very supportive of restoring the area. :13

John Wallace is the refuge manager. Eight years later, the process of re-hydrating Bahia Grande continues.

Restoring ten thousand acres takes quite awhile. We have had to go through an environmental assessment -- public hearings -- to just make sure what we were planning to do in restoring it was not going to cause some kind of impact. :13

Wallace says the project is at the stage of installing the main channel that will fully restore the area. He estimates the work to start in early 2009. When fully restored, humans and wildlife will benefit.

Besides just reducing the blowing dust, it's going to increase the number of marine organisms in the area: anything from larval finfish, to shrimp, to blue crabs that are already in the area. And when we have it fully restored it's going to do nothing more than become a nice estuarine area to benefit wildlife. :21

Find more information at passportotexas.org.

That's our show ... with support from the Wildlife Restoration Program ... providing funding for wetland conservation through the Private Lands Enhancement Program. 

For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti.