The San Jacinto marsh project: Restoration of a priceless biological and cultural resource

The San Jacinto Battleground State Historical Park consists of roughly a thousand acres, including three hundred acres of the San Jacinto River floodplain. It appears that this low bottomland, created by the meandering river, was once a fairly homogenous salt meadow of about four hundred acres, tidally connected to the river through Santa Anna's Bayou. Due to a combination of subsidence, erosion, and dredge disposal, the remaining acreage consists of a mosaic of shallow open water, vegetated and unvegetated tidal flats, salt marsh, forested uplands, and isolated wetlands. After consulting with biologists in state and federal agencies and the private sector, a plan took shape for replacing the lost biological values and restoring the appearance of the marsh to the time of the battle by converting the two hundred acres of shallow open water back to salt marsh and salt meadow.