Restore Little Bay
Initiative
My name is Gary Guillory, President of the Restore Little Bay Foundation. Our Restore Little Bay initiative has been active since February 2025, and throughout this effort Joshua Oyer has provided valuable guidance as we work toward achieving our Tier 1 project objectives.
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What began as a small group of three concerned residents has grown into a coalition of more than fifty individuals and multiple partner organizations, including the Harte Research Institute, Coastal Bend Bays Foundation, Clean Water Impact, and the Beaufort Sea Lagoons LTER, among others.
We have formal MOUs in place with the City of Rockport, the Aransas County Navigation District, the Aransas County Judge and Commissioners, and the City of Fulton. On February 2, 2026, we became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our mission is not to drive policy, but to collaborate with local and regional entities to restore the health of Little Bay—and ultimately work with and improve the broader bay systems from Aransas Bay to Matagorda Bay and south to Baffin Bay. We are a fundraising group.
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Restoring Little Bay is a complex challenge. The bay’s decline stems from multiple factors: the long-term impacts of Hurricane Harvey, increased stormwater runoff from Rockport’s growing population, limited circulation caused by residential development, and the aging wastewater treatment plant, which is permitted to discharge up to 2.5 million gallons of treated effluent per day into a waterbody of only about 400 acres. Understanding these causes has been the foundation of our work.
Despite the complexity, our approach is grounded in teamwork and transparency. We meet one to two times per month with representatives from all participating public entities, who actively contribute ideas and help shape feasible, science‑based solutions. Little Bay is an economic engine for Rockport; its decline would have profound consequences for tourism, local businesses, and the community at large. The challenges we face mirror those confronting many coastal towns along the Texas Gulf Coast.
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As I shared with Joshua Oyer, the work underway in Little Bay may serve as a model for larger communities facing similar environmental pressures.
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Our first major project, in partnership with the Navigation District, is the construction of an additional inlet to improve water circulation—reducing the bay’s discharge time from 42 days to approximately 17 days. Following that, we will again partner with the Navigation District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to re‑dredge channels silted in by Hurricane Harvey, further enhancing circulation. These efforts are essential steps toward restoring seagrass, revitalizing marine life, and re‑establishing ecological balance. Looking ahead, we plan to work with local entities to reroute stormwater to the newly renovated wastewater treatment plant for potable reuse, incorporating reverse osmosis and other technologies to help address regional water shortages driven by drought.
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