In the spring of 2002, a group of agency, advocacy, and industry partners met to address the issue of habitat loss in dickinson BAY and to evaluate the potential to restore three lost islands…

The Galveston Bay Foundation Inc. will receive $100,000 from the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service under the Coastal Program to restore and stabilize Dickinson Bay Bird Island I in Texas. The Foundation will collect data on current island conditions, stabilize the eastern levee by adding material and additional riprap revetment, and plant desirable vegetation for colonial waterbird nesting habitat. This project aims to repair storm damage from Hurricanes Laura, Nicholas and Tropical Storm Beta in 2020-2021 and improve the island's resiliency to future weather events. By protecting and enhancing this critical rookery habitat in Galveston Bay, the cooperative agreement supports the Coastal Program's goal of implementing voluntary coastal habitat projects that benefit federally protected species.

In the spring of 2002, a group of agency, advocacy, and industry partners met to address the issue of habitat loss in dickinson BAY and to evaluate the potential to restore three lost islands historically, and before significant subsidence and erosion occurred, the islands supported nesting bird species, including least tern, gull billed tern, royal tern, black skimmer, american oystercatcher, and caspian tern, as well as intertidal marsh habitat the first island, dickinson BAY bird island I DBI , was constructed in 2005, and consists of a 5 acre, horseshoe shaped clay island protected with a RIP RAP revetment with marsh mounds in the interior plus a 2 acre oyster reef adjacent to the island since construction, DBI has been surveyed annually as part of the texas colonial waterbird surveys currently, the site provides rookery habitat for a variety of species including but not limited to brown pelican, american oystercatcher, cattle egret, roseate spoonbill, TRI colored heron, snowy egret, great blue heron, great egret, white ibis, caspian, royal, forster S terns, neotropical cormorant, and laughing gull since construction, DBI has weathered several tropical weather events including hurricanes IKE 2008 , hurricane harvey 2017 , laura 2020 nicholas 2021 and tropical storms imelda 2019 and beta 2020 the weather events occurring in 2020 and 2021 laura, nicholas, beta all made landfall east of the galveston BAY complex and the north, northeast wind driven waves resulting from these storms caused significant damage to DBI DBI has a large fetch to the north of the island allowing the storm generated wave energy to build prior to impacting the island the result is the eastern levee of the island S horseshoe shape, experienced erosion, loss of vegetation, loss of elevation, and portions of the RIP RAP revetment were damaged or washed over the levee and no longer provide protection on the eastern side of the island this damage, if not repaired, could leave DBI more vulnerable to future storms and high wave energy events continued erosion and loss of elevation could eventually lead to the loss of critical rookery habitat in the galveston BAY region the project will collect data on the current condition of the island and further stabilize the island, primarily the eastern levee, by adding material and or additional RIP RAP revetment measure may also be taken to remove undesired vegetation and plant more desirable vegetation for appropriate colonial waterbird nesting habitat