Park board considers $75M beach construction grant

Sand is dumped on the beach near Dellanera RV Park in Galveston on Jan. 23. The work is part of an $8.3 million beach expansion project on the West End of the island.
JENNIFER REYNOLDS/The Daily News

The Daily News
By B. SCOTT McLENDON The Daily News
May 23, 2023

GALVESTON - The Park Board of Trustees Tuesday unanimously approved a motion for administrators to finalize an application for a $30 million grant to continue beach remediation in the West End.

Park board staff members have successfully applied for and received many millions of dollars from the Texas General Land Office’s Coastal Erosion Planning and Response Act grant, Kimberly Danesi, interim CEO, said.

“CEPRA 11 allowed us to provide engineering for the West End from the template of Dellanera to 8 Mile Road, which is Sunny Beach,” Danesi said. “In 2020, we had a successive series of storms that did some significant damage to the West End.”

That led to a request for the project to go beyond 8 Mile Road all the way to Galveston Island State Park, 14901 FM 3005, Danesi said. That required park board staff members to seek an amendment to the grant for additional funding, she said. Grant cycle No.’s 11 and 12 provided funding for the engineering of the project, while No. 13’s money would pay for the actual sand placement.

“Engineering is currently underway and will be completed at the end of the year,” Danesi said. “And this funding would allow us to place material in that engineering and design template. The interesting thing about this project is that the GLO says this project falls under the Texas Coastal Resiliency Master Plan, it’s a Region One, Tier 1 project.”

That means the land office can provide full funding for the project, without a local match required, Danesi said. Funding would come from the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, a 2006 revenue-sharing model for oil-and-gas-producing states. The program disbursed about $1.6 million to Galveston County this year.

The park board will apply for the full cost of the project, which will be $30 million.

The grant application comes on the heels of complaints and questions posed about the recently completed remediation project in the West End. In February, crews from Apollo Environmental Strategies Inc. completed a $6.8 million beach construction project some residents fear delivered more than just sand.

Residents and vacationers at the SeaScape Condos, 10811 Termini-San Luis Pass Road, have found toddler-sized concrete chunks, rusted and jagged metal, bricks, rock-hard clay chunks and countless sharp shells in the sands. The Daily News on May 18 confirmed the presence of four pieces of concrete ranging in size from a football to a small child, three bricks, one mangled piece of rusted metal, as well as countless sharp shells and hard clumps of clay.

The land office Wednesday is sending a representative to meet with city and park board staff at the beach to answer questions about the debris.

It was unclear Tuesday whether the same contractors would be used for more beach construction projects for which the park board seeks funding.

The park board doesn’t have control over which contractors are selected for beach remediation projects, Mackenzie Finklea, spokeswoman, said. The land office selects those contracts, she said.

B. Scott McLendon: 409-683-5241; scott.mclendon@galvnews.com