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The Ike Dike is a proposed coastal barrier that, when completed, would protect the Galveston Bay in Texas, United States. The project would be a dramatic enhancement of the existing Galveston Seawall, complete with floodgates, which would protect more of Galveston, the Bolivar Peninsula, the Galveston Bay Area, and Houston. The barrier would extend across Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula and would provide a barrier against all Gulf surges into the bay.〔Casselman, WSJ (4 June 2009)〕 The project is the brainchild of Dr. Bill Merrell of Texas A&M University at Galveston. The ''Ike Dike'' would be able to withstand ~10,000 year storms. The proposal is, as the name suggests, motivated by the damage caused by Hurricane Ike in 2008 (as well as the disastrous 1900 Galveston Hurricane).〔〔Merrell, Texas A&M-Galveston〕 Storm surges from Hurricane Ike caused severe damage to Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula and caused significant damage to other areas around the bay. Fortunately the damage to critical industries was minimal and most heavy industry returned to normal quickly. Still, Ike was not nearly as destructive as meteorologists predict a future hurricane will eventually be. Proponents argue that there is a national security concern that must be addressed.〔 The Houston area (particularly the Bay Area) is home to the largest and most important concentration of petroleum refining and petrochemical processing plants in the United States, and most of these plants are on the coast or on the ship channel. Additionally the Port of Houston is the second-busiest port in the nation. The economic damage to the United States, not to mention Texas, in the event of a catastrophic impact on the coast would be nationally serious. Indeed, some researchers have argued that had Ike tracked a few miles further southwest it could have sidelined 40% of U.S. jet-fuel production, not to mention serious setbacks to the production of gasoline and other chemicals Opponents of the project worry that it is simply too expensive (some estimates place the cost between $3 billion and $4 billion) and its efficacy is not established.〔Triarsi, KHOU (15 Jan 2009)〕〔Meyers, GCDN (14 Jan 2009)〕 The project is still only a concept under study. In 2010 the Texas Governor publicly expressed support for the idea.〔 The Governor’s Commission on Disaster Recovery and Renewal recommended that a 6-county (Harris, Galveston, Chambers, Brazoria, Orange and Jefferson) public corporation be established to examine regional approaches to storm surge suppression. That corporation, the Gulf Coast Community Protection and Recovery District, Inc., was established on April 20, 2010. Galveston County Judge Jim Yarborough was elected chair of the board of directors and Robert Eckels, former county judge of Harris County, was elected President. Dannenbaum Engineering was appointed as the engineering consultant. Despite this, though, the declining economy in 2010 stifled efforts to secure funding and the project remains stalled. By the end of 2012 momentum toward building the structure had waned significantly, in large part due to Hurricane Sandy, which seriously damaged the U.S. Northeast and attracted attention away from the Gulf Coast. Nevertheless, in 2013 Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, a local community organization, began efforts to raise funds for a comprehensive study that could convince the U.S. Congress to fund the project.〔 In addition, throughout 2013 researchers at Delft University of Technology worked out several flood defense concepts for closing off the Bolivar Roads Inlet. On Monday August 4, 2014 Texas legislators lamented a disagreement on how to protect the Houston region against storm surge and urged that a plan be brought to the Legislature as soon as possible. ==Notes== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ike Dike」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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