The Island Moon Published by Island Moon Publishing, LLC 15201 S. Padre Island Drive Ste. 250 Corpus Christi, TX. 78418 editor@islandmoon.com (361) 949-7700
Free
FREE
The
Island Moon The Island Newspaper
Island Area News ● Events ● Entertainment
September 23, 2011
Photo by Miles Merwin
The Island with more speed humps than grocery stores
Around The Island By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com The heat has lifted, the tourists have gone home, and the Winter Texans haven’t arrived yet and it’s not even October.It’s a good time to get out and hit the beach or your favorite fishing hole. We had what passed for rain last week. It sort of sprinkled and almost washed the sand off the sidewalks but not quite. Island dogs have long since lost their ability to get in out of the rain. It’s been so long since they’ve seen a gully washer that now when it rains they just stand out in the yard and bat their eyes and bark.
Next Publication Date: 10/07/2011
Update on Island projects
Schlitterbahn Moving Forward, Packery Dredging About to Start, Water Exchange Bridge Hanging Fire By Dale Rankin Several Island projects are simultaneously moving towards fruition. In no particular order here they are.
A drive up the country reminds us of how dry it’s been as there is not a green sprig of grass between here and Austin. Even the Oak and Palm trees are starting to look a little worse for the wear. In a year when a little tropical storm would have been a relief they all found somewhere else to go. When it doesn’t rain it doesn’t pour.
It looks like it is there for a reason but what reason is a little blurry. Well, it was built at the behest of the Army Corps of Engineers back in the last decade of the last century when Westinghouse was going to develop Lake Padre. It was required to keep the area from being inundated with receding floodwater in case of a tidal surge from a hurricane. It was closed exactly once when it was tested and hasn’t been closed since. It was designed to have huge steel I-beams dropped down between the concrete pillars to prevent flood water from passing into Lake Padre. On old maps of The Island, in the days when only cows and their tenders populated The Island the area where the seawall is located was often its own Island. It was a triangular piece of sand bordered on the east by the Gulf, on the north by Packery Channel - then called Corpus Christi Pass - and a shallow body of water that ran from the spot where the seagate is not located to a point about where Whitecap now ends at the beach. During high tide events water would flow to the base of the channel, about where the boat ramps are now, then it would either turn and go out the channel or continue on through the channel that became Lake Padre into the Gulf. The seagate was put in place to prevent that flow and protect the development around the lake; some of which materialized and some we are still waiting on. The giant I-beams were lifted up by crane and dropped into place. After the test the rigging was stored in a room at the Padre Isles Country Club where it still resides, and the I-beams were dropped by the seagate where they are either now buried in the sand or from where they were removed by scavengers. At any rate, the gate has never been deployed during an actual emergency. It sits as a reminder of great plans that fell by the wayside. Blue water The nice blue water continues to lick at our shores of late. The lack of rain has brought the blue water line well in toward the shore. Say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Water Exchange Bridge City staff told the ISAC in its September meeting they intended to present the City Council with design plans for the planned 80-foot wide water exchange bridge under SPID (Park Road 22) at the council’s September 13 meeting. That was pushed back to the meeting on Tuesday, September 27. At that meeting the council is set to here view the plans which call for the 80foot span of the bridge to hold about ten feet of water and have an overhead clearance of 14 feet. It would also include walking trails and golf cart paths on either side. It would connect Lake Padre to a 3000 foot long riverwalk that would include retail shops and residential and hotel space. The design plans are on our Facebook page at theislandmoonnewspaper. The riverwalk would culminate at the Schlitterbahn park and would also connect the Island canal system with Packery Channel through Lake Padre.
There is an old Native American teaching that says “The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth.” This wisdom has been rattling around in the rear view mirror of my mind for over 20 years, mostly, I’ll admit because I’ve never really understood it. It is only now after spending countless hours out on the wide expanse of the Texas Coast that I finally understand what it means. Let me attempt to explain how this understanding seeped in to my subconsciousness and then into my consciousness. Rhythm of the waves Imagine, if you will, that you’re standing all alone on the beach at sunrise. The earth begins to come
Whatawreck! A2
By Dale Rankin
Two weeks before the city council was to approve a contract to begin construction on the extension of Aquarius Street a lawsuit filed by a homeowner and former city council member has thrown the schedule into doubt. Former City Councilman Mike Hummell, who is not an Island resident, and Aquarius resident David Barabino filed the suit seeking to address traffic issues they see arising from the redesign of the street in recent months. Voters citywide approved $950,000 in a bond election in August of 2008. Hummell said while the wording on the bond ballot did not address exactly where the street would be built or how wide it would be, the council was told before they voted to put the item on the ballot that the street would be “31 feet from curb back to curb back.”
“Going from a wide street like is being proposed down to the 30foot street that exists now has the potential to cause a bottleneck,” Hummell said. “We are just trying to get that addressed.”
Artwork Selection Begins for La Posada A11
He said the suit is not intended to block the completion of Aquairus only to address design and safety issues. Aquarius Continued on A 8
Vitter takes important step in protecting vital Gulf habitat CCA applauds Louisiana senator for effort to avert rig removals
Beach Bums Beach Cleanup B1
It would also mean a bridge would be needed to go under the proposed Aquarius extension. For the bridge to happen the City Council must augment the $1.4 million approved by voters in the 2004 bond package. The current estimated cost of the bridge is about $7 million dollars and city staffers told the ISAC they have identified a source for that funding it if is approved by a council majority. According to the current plan the council will hear details of the project in the September 27 meeting and take a formal vote in their meeting the following week. Council members have said they want a Memorandum of Understand with Schexnailder and the owners of Schlitterbahn that they will build the canals connecting the bridge to water on both sides before they will approved spending the money to build the bridge. Schexnailder has said publicly he will “bring the water to the bridge” by extending the current canal which currently terminates just north of Whitecap Boulevard to the bridge, which would cross SPID at a point near where the current 11th green on Padre Isles Country Club is located. That plan calls for nine of the current holes on the course to be displaced by the new development and three new holes to be added on the west side of the course. Schexnailder
and
representatives from Projects Continued on A 9
It’s closer than you think
By A. E. Holland
Year 15, Issue 397
Inside the Moon
The newly designed street which went out for bids in late July is a 60-foot wide easement with a center median.
Wind Power for Homes Editor’s note: We get regular questions from Island homeowners asking about how to reduce their electric bills through the use of renewable resources. We’ve decided to begin a regular column about what is available and allowable on The Island to incorporate wind and solar power into our homes, as we well as how to best insulate them for maximum efficiency. Island A.E. Holland has agree to help out. We welcome her and here is her first column.
Lawsuit Filed Over Aquarius Extension
However, that original cost estimate did not include the installation of utilities in the right of way, a cost which essentially doubled the cost of the project. (See attachment). Since that time bids went out and the actual cost of the entire project actually dropped below the original estimate.
Seagate If you have ever noticed the seagate that leads from Packery Channel into lake Padre and wondered how it got there and why is was built we have an answer. We’re talking about the cement structure that you see on the southside of Packery Channel just behind the dune line..
awake as the first rays of the sun dance across the water. You close your eyes so you can more fully smell the salt air and hear the surf in the newness of the day. The seabirds move with the rhythm of the waves searching for a morning meal. When you open your eyes you see it as if your seeing it for the first time. You are in awe of the bigness of it, the way that it will continue to exist and renew itself whether you’re standing there to witness it or not. The chaotic balance of it is more than can be taken in at one time. The beach and the sea are big and you in comparison are small. There is no way that you can conquer it, control it or own it. The coastline does not belong to you. The ocean will never be in anyone’s possession. So, the sea does not belong to us but as coastal residents we belong to the sea. We live in its rhythms. We are subject to its tides and its winds, it shapes our landscape and molds our communities. This is the ocean of our ancestors and our children.
Port A Parrot Heads Party with a Purpose B2 Coastal Conservation Association is applauding Sen. David Vitter (R-La) for legislation filed today that will prevent rigs and other structures from being summarily removed from the Gulf of Mexico. In a knee-jerk response to the Gulf oil spill, the U.S. Department of Interior issued a directive in October of 2010 ordering that all non-producing rigs be plugged and any remaining structure removed within five years of the issuance of that directive. Sen. Vitter’s Rigs to Reefs Habitat Protection Act of 2011 seeks to allow Vitter Continued on A 11
Green Sea Turtle News From The Seashore
By Donna J. Shaver, Ph.D. Division of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery National Park Service Padre Island National Seashore e-mail: Donna_Shaver@nps.gov This has been a noteworthy year for green sea at Packery Channel and in the surf during warmer turtles on the Texas coast. Record numbers of months of the year. stranded green turtles and green turtle nests have Record strandings, record nests, and training been documented. We also recorded extensive So far this year, 1,845 stranded green turtles have wandering by two adult females that had been been documented on the Texas coast. About 1,600 tagged in south Texas. of these were found “cold stunned” during earlyThe green turtle is listed as a threatened species February. Cold stunning occurs when severe in Texas. It was once numerous in Texas waters, cold fronts pass through the area and drastically but severe freezes and over-harvest in the late- drop water temperatures. These reptiles cannot 1800s caused the population to plummet. After regulate their body temperature and at water years of protection, the population is recovering. temperatures below about 50 degrees they become People now regularly see green turtles swimming immobilized. They float to the surface or wash ashore and if they are not located and protected quickly enough they will succumb.
Thanks to the hard work of many people, more than 1,000 of cold stunned green turtles were located alive, stabilized, tagged, and released in south Texas waters.
Going Green At our fingertips we have the gift of technology, the power of communication, and the ability to create beyond anything that could be imagined 50 years ago. We’ve been moving full speed along the information super highway for a while now and it’s time to pull over and take a look at the Green Continued on A10
Smokey entering the Gulf of Mexico after a satellite transmitter was attached to her
By far, more green turtles have been documented stranded on the Texas coast so far this year than during any other year since the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network was established in 1980. And the earlyFebruary cold stunning event was by far the largest such event recorded
Turtles Continued on A3