When Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Aransas County in 2017, the storm caused an estimated $198 billion in damages, including $15 billion in losses from port closures and severe flooding throughout the Texas coast.

Before, during, and after Harvey, Texas Sea Grant continued its efforts to facilitate and act as project manager for the development of a multi-jurisdictional floodplain management plan by Aransas County to reduce flood risk in the region and help residents become eligible for reductions on their flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program’s Community Rating System.The launch of Texas Sea Grant's Community Resilience Collaborative has assisted in implementation of the plan throughout the year after its formal adoption in summer 2017. Implementation of plan began shortly before Hurricane Harvey and has aided the county in their response to and recovery from the hurricane.

The most common method to preserve the shrimp catch on offshore trawlers is to freeze them in a brine solution on deck and store in a freezer hold below deck. The brine solution will freeze a 50-pound bag of shrimp within 15 minutes, but Texas Sea Grant found that many crew are unaware of how to prepare the brine solution properly to achieve the lowest temperature, a necessary requirement to produce high-quality shrimp that do not taste salty. Texas Sea Grant held a demonstration for shrimp fleet owners to show how proper brine solution preparation is critical in on-board freezing to maintain high-quality shrimp. Participants from 60 vessels reportedly are using their brine tanks properly and have not lost revenue due to poor-quality shrimp.

Clear Creek in League City, Texas, is considered impaired by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality because of high levels of bacteria, low levels of dissolved oxygen and legacy PCB in sediments. Contaminants from urban stormwater runoff are major contributors to the first two types of pollution.

Texas Sea Grant’s Texas Coastal Watershed Program (TCWP) led a project that resulted in the creation of a park, the Ghirardi Family WaterSmart Park, demonstrating stormwater practices, including a rain garden, vegetated swale and green roof. In 2017, the features in the park treated an estimated 637,500 gallons of stormwater before it flowed into Clear Creek.