ASB 2013 - Environmental Conservation
By: Megan Bartrum
You know, I always thought that the ocean was warmer. I always expected to step anticipatorily into the
water and feel like standing in a pool. We were in Galveston, TX, a place whose economy was built off of
its ocean, and it was Spring Break. Pictures of happy, beautiful people in bikinis and boardshorts soaking
up rays of sun pop into our heads as we are anticipating the city of Galveston. Isn’t that the American
Dream of Spring Breaks?
Perhaps not for us. Because the 11 people drove to Galveston for Alternative Spring Break. All of the
archetypal fun was not on the agenda. We were going down to the beach to help conserve the
environment! We traded the beach houses for the floor of a church; the bikinis for waders. On the first
day, we knew we were in for something different. After arriving at the church, the very hospitable
owner offered us full range of all of his services- a cafeteria style kitchen, bathrooms, and laundry
services. The menu? Mostly sandwiches, fruits, cereals. Each person made their own lunch every night,
making every bite all the more gratifying. What had we really gotten ourselves into?
We found out the first day of work. At 8 AM, we were in the office of the Galveston Bay Foundation with
Matt, an absolutely exuberant man with a love of the wild paralleled only by Jack London. The water in
Galveston Bay is affected by areas all the way up to Dallas, being used by over 2 million people. The bay
was so important to him; he embodied the amount of care everyone should feel for their use of natural
resources. On the first day, we pulled smooth cord grass from the nurseries at the Ecocenter and
transplanted them. Afterwards we switched straight to dry work, planting clods of grass in freshly tilled
earth. Our hands grimy, we sprayed off with a hose outside and hopped in to go back for reflection. At
the church, we all got to know each other through secret handshakes that were used when Veronica
yelled “UT DALLAS, ASSEMBLE!” and high-fived each of us. Was it dorky? OF COURSE. And it made for
great spirits throughout the whole trip.
We were going to need that, for the next day was making oyster bars. These bars are what oyster larvae
attach to in order to survive. If they don’t have bars, they attach to anything, including boats and tires.
Our goal was to make a safe place for the oysters to develop. We drove to a desolate place near a
barbed wire medical facility, carrying mesh, tubing, and shovels. 18 people total worked for 4.5 hours to
assemble over 1000 of the bags. With each bag weighing in at 32 or so pounds, we managed to make a
whopping 16 tons of oyster bar. It was impressive, magnificent, strenuous.
However, our conquering of oyster piles was not over yet. These bars had to then be transported to the
bay and laid down on a piece of tarp connecting both sides of already cemented reef. As soon as one
stepped into the water, one could see the devastating consequences of oysters with lack of housingtires and debris from Hurricane Ike still lurked at the shore, with oysters sadly attached. Our purpose
was, at that moment, visually assigned. The work was cold, wet, windy, and miserable. But we got it
done, with the continual support of the Galveston Bay folks, who were overjoyed to have installed it.
Afterwards, they all offered us raw oysters for our efforts, and Linh downed hers first like a straight up
champion. Our real reward, however, was the time spent on the beach, laughing and braving the ocean
in the wind. You’d think we’d have had enough of the water by that point. We came back to the church
and watched Wreck It Ralph until we all fell asleep.
Despite the conditions of our 3rd day, the last day of our work was probably the most frustrating. We
strapped those waders back on for the last time, and walked out to plant that cord grass from the first
day into a bay area protected by a wall. The grass is to help stop erosion from water splashing, and it
was running out fast. The mud in which we planted our grass was at least knee-deep, and many of us
resorted to either switching out waders or going barefoot all together. Our work was done quickly and
within the hour. Afterwards, we ferried back to Galveston and marveled at the expanse of the bay
underneath us, had a delicious dinner, and spent quality time together. Our last day of volunteering was
done, and we only had to look forward to exploring the area.
And that we did. We watched the sun rise, hung out on the peach, ate pizza & burgers, and hunted for
ghost crabs. We hung out later that night to solidify the friendships and experiences that we had over
the course of the week.
So we may have not beach bummed the whole time. Perhaps our break looked like shovels and mud.
Perhaps we had forgone cementing old friendships with our social circles in order to make new ones
with people we would have otherwise never met. But at the end of the week, we MADE something. We
could see what we had done. Our impact was visual, there, a proclamation of existence in the wide
expanse of the sea. And to leave you really understanding the experience of ASB 2013: Galveston, I have
one quote, from the internet comic XKCD- “From the stories, I expected the world to be sad. And it was.
And I expected it to be wonderful. It was. I just didn’t expect it to be so big.”