their fry go up into the nursery 

 grounds of the estuaries. Moreover, 

 two of the principal food fishes upon 

 which these species depend are also 

 estuarine-dependent . I speak of the 

 shrimp and menhaden. 



Today, there are some 600,000 

 salt-water anglers in Texas. And 

 with the ever-increasing movement to 

 the ocean-front, this number will 

 continue to increase dramatically. 

 In 1975, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service Survey indicated that each 

 saltwater angler fished an average of 

 12 days annually, spending approxi- 

 mately $11.50 per day while fishing. 

 With the 40 percent increase in costs 

 since that time, this means that each 

 of Texas' 600,000 anglers spent about 

 $16 per day, or a total of $192 per 

 year. All told, the expenditures for 

 salt-water fishing in Texas would 

 total $75,200,000 annually, and this 

 does not include the capital outlay 

 for the sportsman's boat, motor, 

 trailer and terminal tackle. Again, 

 on looking at it from a long-term 

 gain basis, this impact upon the 

 Texas coastal economy not only will 

 continue, but it will continue to 

 grow, as the population grows. 

 Destroy our estuaries, and we destroy 

 this important economic value. 



I would like to touch for a 

 moment on the subject which you will 

 be discussing here for the next three 

 days--the freshwater inflows into the 

 estuaries. I do not propose to speak 

 as an expert--you will hear from them 

 later. But I do have a few thoughts 

 on the matter. Several years back, 

 when the infamous Texas Water Plan 

 was being proposed, we were told that 

 it would provide a grand total of 2 

 million acre-feet annually to Texas 

 bays. How generous! I am told that 

 the Galveston Bay system alone needs 

 something like 7 million acre-feet 



annually to remain productive. Since 

 neither our commercial fisheries nor 

 our sports fisheries are defined as 

 an "industry" they do not legally 

 come in for their share of freshwater 

 flows. But some scheme must be de- 

 vised to assure that enough fresh- 

 water is released from the dams and 

 impoundments to keep our bays pro- 

 ductive. 



Sometimes I wonder why it would 

 not be feasible to store some of the 

 excessive rainfall during extremely 

 wet years to be released subsequently 

 in extremely dry years, such as we 

 are experiencing now. For instance, 

 in 1972 and 1973 we had something 

 like 72 inches of rainfall in the 

 Trinity River Watershed, where the 

 annual average is about 42 inches. 

 It seemed tragic that this fresh wa- 

 ter inflow perhaps was wasted—al- 

 though we are told that occasional 

 flushings from heavy rainfalls are 

 good for the estuarine systems--but 

 72 inches? During that period the 

 fresh water reached five miles off- 

 shore. I hardly think that kind of 

 flushing is necessary to keep the 

 estuaries healthy. On the other hand, 

 though, how do you store even a por- 

 tion of that kind of rainfall? 



One of our commercial fishing 

 friends, a few years after those 

 floods, came up with a proposal to 

 construct a diversionary canal from 

 the Trinity River, around Houston, to 

 dump the surplus into the Brazos. He 

 never did explain where we were to 

 get the billions of dollars with 

 which to purchase the right-of-way 

 for the canal, nor who was going to 

 foot the bill so that the oyster 

 harvest would not be destroyed by the 

 fresh water. 



Is it feasible to store some of 

 the surplus in wet years? How much 



