The Port of Houston has used dredging to restore marshes and other beneficial use sites in the Galveston Bay area.
As a component of the 1998 congressionally authorized project to deepen and widen of the Houston-Galveston Navigation Channels (HGNC), the silt, sand, shell and clay dredged during the expansion and subsequent channel maintenance has been, and will be, utilized as an environmental resource to enhance Galveston Bay.
This project is one of the largest wetland creation efforts of its kind in the nation.
In order to identify environmentally and economically responsible ways to utilize the material dredged from the HGNC expansion, an coalition of eight government agencies, called the Beneficial Uses Group (BUG), was formed in 1990.
Over the next 50 years, the BUG project, sponsored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Port of Houston Authority, has: