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The purpose of this paper is to present a comparative study of marine bacteria, molds and actinomycetes in regard to their ability to degrade certain pure and mixed complex compounds possibly occurring in the lagoon waste traps of the Texas Gulf Coast. This comparison was made using a differential oxygen uptake as the index of specific compound utilization.

Because the volume of flow through an inlet is proportional to the tidal range and the area of the tidal basin, Texas tidal inlets have some of the largest tidal basins relative to their entrance area of any inlet. Matagorda Bay at Pass Cavallo has an area of about 200 square miles, but only a mean diurnal tidal range of about 1.1 feet. From tide gage records the most important events modifying tidal currents in Pass Cavallo are the numerous wind tides each year that occur most frequently during the cooler months, November through May. Wind tides are most noticeable in Matagorda Bay because the astronomical tidal range is small, the fetch long (10-20 miles) and the depth only about 12 feet. Hurricanes and river floods that would raise water levels in Matagorda Bay by even 0.5 foot occur too infrequently to affect equilibrium conditions in the inlet. Pass Cavallo has passed through three time periods since 1856: 1856-1930, 1930-1965, and post 1965. Each time period was characterized by a different, and subsequently smaller tidal discharge, cross-sectional area and tidal channel length. The tidal discharge decreased between 1929 and 1935 when the Colorado River delta cut off part of east Matagorda Bay to reduce the tidal area of Matagorda Bay, and in 1965, the Matagorda Ship Channel was dredged across Matagorda Peninsula to reduce the volume of water passing through Pass Cavallo. Other features that changed with decreasing discharge, but remained stable during each time period, were the channel pattern, and location and shape of the Gulf bar and Pelican Island. During all three periods Pass Cavallo maintained stable cross-sectional shape, and tidal flow by-passing characteristics, except during the post 1965 when neither tidal flow by-passing nor bar by-passing were dominant. Since 1856 Pass Cavallo has remained geographically stable relative to its width. The axial trough has migrated southwestward about 1000 feet during the past 100 years--or about 1/9th the distance between Matagorda Peninsula and Matagorda Island. Shorelines adjacent to the inlet also have tended to move southwestward, but at a faster rate than the axial trough. Along the western side of the pass, shoreline erosion is related to jetties interrupting sediment transport southward from the western shoreline of Matagorda Bay, and to storms eroding the constructional beach extending northward from Matagorda Island. The modern flood delta at Pass Cavallo consists of a large, sandy platform, that is lobate into Espiritu Santo Bay with salt marsh, storm-tidal flats and tidal channels. The flood delta is located to the side of the channel pattern of Pass Cavallo, and appears to be active only during the high tides of hurricanes, tropical storms and "northers". There are three informal physiographic provinces on the flood delta, each one reflecting a different sediment supply and energy regime inherent in each bay and in the Gulf. 1) The Gulf of Mexico Province has the largest and best-developed intertidal beaches, surge channels, storm-tidal flats and mounds of all three provinces. Sand is the dominant sediment. 2) Matagorda Bay Province includes large marsh islands and tidal channels with fewer large vegetated mounds. Shell is very abundant in mounds, and a storm-tidal flats contain more mud and encroaching salt marsh than in the Gulf province. 3) Espiritu Santo Bay Province is composed mostly of sandy mud or muddy sand sediment, with the exception of erosional shell beaches that face a north or south fetch of 1 to 2 miles. This is the richest area biologically, consisting mostly of salt marsh and grassflats. / text

The present study explores some of the materials native to the Texas Gulf Coast between Corpus Christi and Beaumont relative to their adaptability to weaving. The problem is three-fold: first, to collect and identify the indigenous materials which might prove suitable for weaving; second, to determine the range of uses which each might serve in a weaving program; and third, to test further each selected specimen by making a sample into a finished woven product.

Community college students are being forced to delay future educational goals, due to the lack of financial support. Grants, student loans and financial aid support from government sources are in short supply. While past resources from state legislative bodies are being restricted and have been reduced to historic levels; educational organizations –community college foundations - have had to associate themselves with numerous outside sources. Collaborative partnerships with business, government, and industry have helped to relieve financial short- falls and student scholarship pressures while building long term and sustaining relationships. The purpose of this study was to investigate the process of annual giving within Texas Gulf Coast Community Colleges. A framework for the study was structured inside of five different institutions in the Gulf Coast region. Additionally, this study set out to examine the overall context of annual giving and whether college foundations were utilizing annual giving as a relationship tool for development and fundraising purposes. The research design followed an interview, case study format utilizing qualitative data. The study had several major findings. First, all colleges adhere to inputs, processes, and outputs. Second, by analyzing each of the inputs and processes, a set of output relationships- were discovered. Third, all institutions have a set of functions – financial, organizational, operational, and structural – which are in alignment with inputs, process and outputs. Fourth, brand identity helps to integrate donors and thereby, builds sustained and long-term support. Annual giving within Texas Gulf Coast community colleges has become a major fixture as a fundraising practice. Foundations are making the most of this tool by positioning themselves with their community and thus, reaping the benefits of donor relationships. / text

Stacked storage systems are a viable carbon management operation, especially in regions with potential growth in CO₂ enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects. Under a carbon constrained environment, the industrial Texas Gulf Coast is an ideal area for development of stacked storage operations, with a characteristically high CO₂ intensity and abundance of aging oil fields. The development of EOR along the Texas Gulf Coast is limited by CO₂ supply constraints. A stacked storage system is implemented with an EOR project to manage the temporal differences between the operation of a coal-fired power plant and EOR production. Currently, most EOR operations produce natural CO₂ from geologic formations. A switch to anthropogenic CO₂ sources would require an EOR operator to handle volumes of CO₂ beyond EOR usage. The use of CO₂ in an EOR operation is controlled and managed to maximize oil production, but increasing injection rates to handle the volume of CO₂ captured from a coal plant can decrease oil production efficiency. With stacked storage operations, a CO₂ storage reservoir is implemented with an EOR project to maintain injection capacity equivalent to a coal plant's emissions under a carbon constrained environment. By adding a CO₂ storage operation, revenue can still be generated from EOR production, but it is considerably less than just operating an EOR project. The challenge for an efficient stacked storage project is to optimize oil production and maximize profits, while minimizing the revenue reduction of pure carbon sequestration. There is an abundance of saline aquifers along the Texas Gulf Coast, including the Wilcox, Vicksburg, and Miocene formations. To make a stacked storage system more viable and reduce storage costs, maximizing injectivity is critical, as storage formations are evaluated on a cost-per-ton injected basis. This cost-per-ton injected criteria, also established as injection efficiency, incorporates reservoir injectivity and depth dependant drilling costs to determine the most effective storage formation to incorporate with an EOR project. With regionally adequate depth to maximize injectivity while maintaining reasonable drilling costs, the Vicksburg formation is typically the preferred storage reservoir in a stacked storage system along the Texas Gulf Coast. Of the eleven oil fields analyzed on a net present value basis, the Hastings field has the greatest potential for both EOR and stacked storage operations. / text

In marine flatfish of the genus Paralichthys, temperature plays a large role in sex determination. Thus, global climate change could have significant effects on southern flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma), a commercially and recreationally important flatfish whose populations have steadily declined in Texas in the last 25 years. The most susceptible areas to global climate change are shallow water environments, particularly estuaries, which serve as essential nursery habitats for juvenile southern flounder. While in the estuaries, juveniles develop, and sex is determined. Juvenile southern flounder possess genotypic sex determination; however, the sex of females is highly influenced by temperature and can result in sex reversal. The temperature-sensitive enzyme complex responsible for estrogen biosynthesis in vertebrates is aromatase cytochrome P450 (P450arom), a critical component in ovarian differentiation that can be used to measure presumptive males and females exposed to a gradient of temperatures. This research identifies that sex is influenced by temperature between 35 and 65 mm total length (TL) and establishes that increases in temperature from 18 °C during this size range produce increasingly male skewed sex ratios in southern flounder from Texas. The findings presented here are critical for optimizing production of females in culture and for developing stock enhancement programs of southern flounder in Texas. / text