Court Backs State In Battle Over Oyster Reefs

The state has won in a controversial legal battle over the right of a navigation district to issue a lease that would have ceded rights to a large portion of oyster reefs in Galveston Bay to a single entity.

by Carol Flake

Boats and residential development in League City near Clear Lake on Nov. 10, 2015.
Boats and residential development in League City near Clear Lake on Nov. 10, 2015.  Edmund D. Fountain/ProPublica/Texas Tribune

An appeals court has sided with the state in a controversial legal battle over the right of a navigation district to issue a lease that would have ceded rights to a large portion of oyster reefs in Galveston Bay to a single entity. The Third Court of Appeals backed up the state, which filed suit against the entity knowns the sustainable Texas Oyster Resource Management and the commissioners who had agreed to the deal. (Houston Press)