HOUSTON, Dec. 8, 2006 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- More than 150 guests attended a December 7, 2006 celebration honoring environmentalist Richard "Dick" Gorini, namesake for the nation's first manmade marsh of its magnitude. The event at the South Shore Harbour Resort and Conference Center was hosted by the Port of Houston Authority (PHA), Gahagan & Bryant Associates Inc., Hydrographic Technologies Inc., J. Simmons Group and Turner Collie and Braden Inc.
Gorini was hired as the port authority's first environmental manager in 1988. He went on to successfully steward the country's most ambitious project of its kind -- the building of a 200-acre marsh from dredge material dug from the Houston Ship Channel in Galveston Bay. It was originally called, simply, the Demonstration Marsh. Once finished, it loomed as the largest manmade marsh in U.S. history. Today, the marsh is laced with canoe and kayak trails throughout. Earlier this year, the marsh was cited in a National Marine Fisheries Service report that showed all populations for shrimp and crab were substantially higher (12 to 154 times) within the marsh that could have been expected to be sustained in the open water the marsh replaced.
On November 27, 2006, the Demonstration Marsh was officially named Richard "Dick" Gorini Marsh by the Commission for the Port of Houston Authority. The December 7 event was held to celebrate that naming.
Photos accompanying this release are available at http://media.primezone.com/poha/pages/environment.html
CAPTIONS (unless noted otherwise, all people listed as pictured left to right):
Photo 01: Georganna Collins, of LEAP Engineering, Richard Gorini and Herbie Maurer, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Ret.)
Photo 02: Kayakers make their way through the recently named Richard "Dick" Gorini Marsh.
Photo 03: Richard Gorini (second from right) is flanked by family members including brother- and sister-in-law Don and Christi Craske, wife Claudia and sister Karen Fletcher.
Photo 04: PHA Commissioner Jimmy Burke and project chief agronomist Eddie Seidensticker.
Photos courtesy the Port of Houston Authority (photos by Chris Kuhlman).
About the Port of Houston Authority
The Port of Houston Authority owns and operates the public facilities located along the Port of Houston, the 25-mile long complex of diversified public and private facilities designed for handling general cargo, containers, grain and other dry bulk materials, project and heavy lift cargo, and other types of cargo. Each year, more than 6,600 vessels call at the port, which ranks first in the U.S. in foreign waterborne tonnage, second in overall total tonnage, and 10th largest in the world. The Port Authority plays a vital role in ensuring navigational safety along the Houston Ship Channel, which has been instrumental in Houston's development as a center of international trade. The Barbours Cut Container Terminal and Central Maintenance Facility are the first of any U.S. port facilities to develop and implement an innovative Environmental Management System that meets the rigorous standards of ISO 14001. Additionally, the port is an approved delivery point for Coffee "C" futures contracts traded on the New York Board of Trade's Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange. For more information, please visit www.portofhouston.com. To access the port's website photo gallery, please visit http://www.portofhouston.com/publicrelations/publicrelations.html and click the link for PHA Photo Gallery.
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