A barrier against storm surge: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finalized its feasibility plan in 2021 for a Galveston Bay storm surge barrier system. It includes dunes along Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Island, a heightened seawall and a series of gates across the mouth of the Houston Ship Channel to protect against storm surge.

An illustration by the Houston Chronicle of the planned Ike Dike in Galveston.

In a chemistry classroom at Texas A&M’s Galveston campus, dozens of politicians, bureaucrats and business power brokers are planning the largest civil engineering project in U.S. history.

You may have heard of it. The Ike Dike. Officially known as the Coastal Texas Project.

The folks in this room are there for the June monthly meeting of the Gulf Coast Protection District, a five-county entity created by the Texas Legislature. This gathering, while well-intentioned, seems a bit delusional in light of a stark political reality: the only barrier the federal government seems interested in building these days is along the Mexico border.

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The folks in this room are keepers of the flame for a project that has taken on mythic status since it was first promoted in 2008 by Texas A&M oceanographer Bill Merrell shortly after Hurricane Ike pushed a 17-foot storm surge over Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula. That storm caused $30 billion in damage and killed 43 people.

I’ve been writing and reporting on this project since I joined the Houston Chronicle in the fall of 2017, months after Hurricane Harvey, another devastating storm, caused massive flooding in Houston. I’ve tracked the Ike Dike’s progression, and discussed it with elected officials, engineers, meteorologists, coastal ecologists, homeowners and business owners. I’ve seen its price tag and design evolve from a $31 billion concrete levee to a $57 billion system of levees, dunes and sea gates.

I’ve also lived in Galveston, and covered several tropical storms that have battered the coastline. I’m convinced we need better protection from floods. But is this thing ever going to get built? At this point, shouldn’t we be at least thinking about other concepts?

The monthly meetings of the protection district seem farcical. An extended game of pretend. Only the stakes are too high to laugh. Another Ike, were it to make a direct hit, would swamp the Houston Ship Channel and devastate the economy – locally and globally – while contaminating our region for generations with a noxious stew of........

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