May 7, 2015
A 11
Island Moon
Airtales By Major Jason Towns, USAF (Retired) As a 29th Century Pilot- watched the barges awaiting entry into Corpus in-Command, Captain Christi Bay line up perpendicular to St. Joseph’s James Kirk had one Island and shove their massive bows into the Officer on his crew who sand, mud and vegetation on its western side. was capable of using his As reported in other news sources, the tugboats’ bean in a purely logical manner and offering engines were often running continuously solutions to problems without emotion muddling depending on tide conditions to keep the barges up the process. Mr. Spock was appreciated for lodged there. This was obvious from above as this ability aboard the Enterprise and his entire I could see the foaming water behind each tug race was supposedly essential to making sure and the exhaust pouring from their stacks. The intergalactic political decisions were the right arrangement of the barges was also haphazard and unorganized and I remember thinking ones for “needs of the many”. “There’s gotta be a better way.”
Don’t Line up the Barges that Way! Wait… There’s Barges??
Rewind to today and we see purely logical decisions made by the well-meaning and entrepreneurial among us causing uproar and hate. I’m speaking of the Lydia Ann Channel Moorings project and the fervor this simple, logical and beneficial idea is causing. Some have said this is simply a “NIMBY” issue. (This is an acronym Environmental Engineers—the discipline in which I received my own degree way too long ago-- actually used in reference to the “Not in My Back Yard” thinking of the masses.) From my observations of the Channel project and of the comments made in the media and Facebook, I’ve coined another term for what may be happening: WDITOT, which stands for “Why Didn’t I Think of That”. Containing a significant portion of the basic human emotion of envy, my new syndrome’s acronym can almost be re-arranged to form the word Idiot. Almost. I fly over the Island almost every fair-weather day of the year and spend hours reflecting on what my eyes see below me. For many years I
Suddenly a few months back I noticed the barges were now tied neatly in rows parallel to the channel. They were no longer disturbing the seabed along the island nor were their engines running. They were now in a position to get moving quickly when it was their turn to move along. They looked much neater and the scene could almost be described as, well, “scenic”. Why didn’t I think of this? Somebody had made a logical decision to a problem and it was implemented quickly. “Awesome”, I thought and my brain moved on to other things and I assumed everyone else’s had as well. It seems what I saw as a brilliant new arrangement was the brainchild of likethinking Oral Surgeon and entrepreneur Brian Gulley and it wasn’t until last week’s Airport Advisory Board meeting that I realized there was a problem with it. Although not airport related, the placement of the channel mooring posts was mentioned in the meeting and a few good-natured but slightly snide comments were made about Dr. Gulley, his other Island projects and his wealth. This piqued my interest and prompted me to research the issue a bit more.
Barges in 2014 await passage from the Lydia Ann Channel prior to installation of the mooring poles.
Mark Creighton tries out the new Kubota commercial mower at the airport. The mower will be used by volunteers to help keep the airport looking nice between City-funded mowings. The “Friends of Port Aransas” Facebook page mentions greed, corruption, environmental catastrophes and a suggestion that Dr. Gulley “should be forced to park the barges in front of his own house…” Wow. A logical mind with a penchant for action rather than lengthy bureaucratic discussion is certainly not appreciated in this century. Only in America are we ignorant of a problem until after there’s a solution which then becomes a problem. And let’s hope if there are Vulcan thinkers in the year 2950 they don’t happen to gain any wealth from the decisions they make; we’d probably exile them to a Klingon planet...
“I just mowed that grass for free.” -Forest Gump On to a lighter but similar subject. We’ve had plenty of rain lately and the weather has greatly exacerbated some annoyances we’ve always had on the Island airport: flooding, overgrowth and mosquitoes. The first issue simply cannot be helped; it’s often been said that if Mustang Beach airport were proposed today it would never exist because you really couldn’t pick a worse spot for an airport from an engineering or environmental standpoint. It’s a low-lying area and constructed in such a way only the runway can be truly elevated enough to drain in a downpour—which is good because that’s the most important part. Pretty much the entire remainder of the property was submerged after the late April storms until it could slowly drain through a couple of pipes into Island Moorings marina, a process which can’t really occur at all during anything but low tide.
Barge parking today
The other two problems are
closely related and one begets the other with only a little help from the first: the grass on the airport is thick and tall and the mosquitoes call it home by the millions. The City of Port A has a contract in place to mow the airport only a few times a year. I’ve often wondered why similarly sized airports such as Beeville, Sinton, Lockhart etc are kept perfectly and perpetually landscaped despite almost nonexistent air traffic while Port Aransas—attracting at least fifty planes per week-- allows the grass to reach knee-high before mowing. It’s understandable, however, when you consider the aforementioned municipalities don’t have a marina, a nature preserve, skate-park, a top-notch community pool or several miles of beach to attend to.
So a few airport regulars got together and came up with our own solution: a commercial grade mower manned by volunteer efforts. A trip to Gulf Tractor and promises of additional capital from my two partners resulted in the purchase of a Kubota “Z-723” sixty-inch-cut zero-turn beast. Not only have we completely mowed the airport in just a few hours, I must say— except for the necessity of a thorough dousing of Off before each session-- it has been a fun process. Anyone with enough lawn or land to even remotely justify the purchase of one of these machines should do so! (Kubota and John Deere both make residential versions as well…)
In true modern-American-bureaucracy fashion someone out there submitted a complaint to City Hall regarding our action and we promptly received a cease-and-desist notice until legal forms could be processed protecting the City from the liability of our efforts. A list of all mower-driving volunteers must be submitted and my entire staff at Skydive South Texas wants to be on it. Fortunately we pretty much finished the first round of mowing before government got in the way. The airport looks great and the skeeters are looking for a new place to live. Yell hello if you see us above the Island!
Two-year old Elizabeth Towns thinks flooded airports are FUN!