Houston Ship Channel Monitoring Program 1973-78

The Houston Ship Channel monthly monitoring program was begun in January, 1972, by the Texas Water Quality Board. In September, 1977, the TWQB merged with two other state water agencies to become the Texas Department of Water Resources. The monitoring program was initiated because of the concern for the quality of water entering into the Galveston Bay complex, the largest and one of the most productive estuaries on the Texas coast. The Bay provides 38 percent of all the sport fishing and about 80 percent of all the shellfish produced in Texas. The complex has a total surface are of about 533 square miles with a combined shoreline of about 245 miles.