Talk:Galveston Bay/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Hurricanehink (talk · contribs) 15:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• "With an average depth of only 6 feet (2 m), it is unusually shallow for its size. " - perhaps mention the max depth somewhere in the lead?

Done. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• "Low global sea levels allowed the Texas mainland to extend significantly further south than it does presently, and the Trinity River had carved a 170-foot (52 m) deep canyon through present-day Bolivar Roads on its way to the coast." - I think that should be "farther", because it refers to distance. Also, could you mention what Bolivar Roads is here? You mention it in the infobox, and only later in the article do you explain that it's the waterway that leads to the ocean

Good points, done. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• "Human settlement in what is now Texas began at least 10,000 years ago" - any reason you change the date format here?

Fixed. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• "His base was soon appropriated by pirate Jean Lafitte" - I'm not sure what you mean "appropriated"

I've attempted to clarify. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• " The city of Galveston became a major U.S. commercial center for shipping cotton, leather products and cattle, and other goods produced in the growing state." - the listing seems off by having "leather products and cattle, and" - why not "leather products, cattle, and other goods..."?

Fixed. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• "Over the past few decades, approximately 100 acres (0.40 km2) of the historic San Jacinto battleground has been submerged, Sylvan Beach, a popular destination in La Porte, has been severely eroded, and the once prominent Brownwood neighborhood of Baytown has been abandoned." - interesting stuff, but I feel like you're either missing a semicolon, or something with the listing just feels off.

Addressed. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• Some of the history section is out of order. You mention frozen transport in the 1920s, then the 1900 hurricane, then the oil boom of the 1910s, then pollution in the 1970s, then the Space Program of the 1960s

I've tried to straighten this out. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• Is "sub-bay" the proper term?

I've changed it. Also, I'm not convinced that the plane crash is significant enough to merit mention here (presumably other people have died on this bay in boating incidents, near it in automotive collisions, etc.). If you support, I'll probably just cut that sentence. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• "7.5 million acre feet (9.3×109 m3) of freshwater annually." - is "acre feet" the common volume to measure this? What about 9.3x109 m3? The next sentence has a different format for the m3 btw

The acre-foot actually is the standard unit used by e.g. Texas government agencies to measure inflows, reservoir capacity, and so forth; I agree that it's a bit obscure, so I've wikilinked the unit name. It seems to be the Convert template making that scientific-notation difference happen; I guess it doesn't want to display a value with that many digits. I could switch the metric units to km^3, though the figures would end up a bit small? -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• The climate section could be a good spot to mention Ike and Harvey. Sure, both storms are technically "history", but they're pretty recent events, and their long term history isn't really known yet. Even the Ike Dike is still just a proposal

What an excellent idea! Done. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• " the system of bayous, rivers, and marshes that rings" - I think that's grammatically correct (system... rings) but it reads odd out loud "marshes that rings..."

Yes, a bit of an SAT problem, there. I've tried to make it more natural. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• "The 2019 report assigns a "C" grade for toxins" - why present tense? Also, I'm guessing this grade is better than what it was in the past, considering you mention the Clean Water Act as helping improve conditions.

Good catch on the tense. This organization's only been doing this "report card" thing for a handful of years in the 2010s, and it's been a 'C' every year so far; presumably that represents significant progress over conditions in the '70s. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• "On March 22, 2014, a barge carrying nearly 1 million US gallons (4×106 L) of marine fuel oil collided with another ship in the Houston Ship Channel, causing the contents of one of the barge's 168,000-US-gallon (640,000 L) tanks to leak into Galveston Bay." - any details on the cleanup? Also, your units for litres is inconsistent here

Added some context and cleanup info. I've removed the first (irrelevant) figure for the total load carried by the barge involved. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• Other significant communities bordering the bay include Baytown, Galveston, Texas City, La Porte, Seabrook, Anahuac, Kemah, Clear Lake, and Anahuac. - A city so nice it's mentioned twice?

Haha fixed. :) -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• "In 2007, the Port of Galveston produced 19.2 million pounds (8.7×106 kg) of seafood with a value of $40.1 million." - any more recent estimates?

I've switched in a 2012 figure that applies to the entire bay system (and not to the offshore catch, which is where most of the Galveston landings are coming from). -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• Sourcing spotcheck:

• Ref 53 doesn't cover all of that paragraph of content

Added a source and moved some of this to the "Features" section, where I think it fits better. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• Ref 15 is good
• Ref 30 uses a different date format

Think I've now cleaned up all the dates. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• Ref 31 is a dead link, ditto ref 45. Ref 45 uses a different date format, and I notice a lot of access dates are likewise in a different format.

31 was redundant, so I've removed it. I've resurrected 45. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

All in all it's a good read. I was curious about the article because I'm quite familiar with Ike/Harvey/1900 Galveston storm. The article did a good job covering the important points of the topic, so I don't think my comments should be too difficult to address. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing this! As a note, I'm not the main writer of this article, but I've been trying to organize and clean it up to the GA standard, and a second set of eyes is very helpful for spotting places it needs more polish. I've tried to address all of these now; let me know what else you see! -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)