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The Island Moon
Issue 536
July 24, 2014 Around The Island By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com
The voice of The Island since 1996
Island of Gardens Even in semi-arid Southwest Island gardeners find a way
It seems hard to believe but the 2014 tourist season is more than halfway over. Memorial Day is now nine weeks in the rearview and Labor Day five weeks ahead. Where did July go!?
Texas A&M University, which has headed up the Mariculture Project in Port Aransas since the mid-1980s, will leave The Island at the end of August when its lease expires.
The Sargassum weed trackers flew the southern Gulf of Mexico on Saturday and report that there is large mat of weed to our southeast that with prevailing winds will find its way to our beaches in the next week. Light weed continues to come ashore and pile up near the South Packery.
Sally Palmer, communications coordinator for the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, said UT will take over the facility on the Intracoastal Canal that has been involved in the development and commercialization of shrimp and sea urchin farming, among other research.
Dry beach driving
And so it goes.
Hurricane evacuation Hurricane Season 2014 has come in with a whimper but planning for the next Big One is never off the agenda hereabouts. In that vein City Councilwoman Colleen McIntyre has suggested establishing a list of people who may need help with evacuation during a storm and a list of people who would be able to help them evacuate. The idea is in its early stages but is a good one and anyone interested can contact us here or the POA.
Palmer said the facility will continue to be used for marine science and education but offered no details as UT is still in discussions with A&M.
When people think of our Island they mostly think of sand, water, and sunshine, three things we have plenty of. Island gardeners use these three elements to create surprisingly lush gardens in the otherwise arid Southwest. In Douden Park the community gardens have now grown to 80 individual gardens with the addition
of twenty new plots currently being added. The project was begun in 2012 by Island Beautification Trust President John White with twenty gardens and quickly began expanding due to high demands from Islanders with a green thumb looking for space. The gardens grow primarily vegetables with spring crops of tomatoes, beans, squash, and eggplants and autumn crops of
cauliflower, broccoli, onions, and greens. July and August are the slow months as the South Texas heat and sun are just too much for vegetation to flourish. Islander David Dunseth maintains a plot at the community garden where he and the Island Garden Club maintain a butterfly garden, but he
Gardens continued on A9
Seawall Driving Ban a Work in Progress Council delays decision, will act “as early as possible”
Fishing The Bluff Flour Bluff residents complained to the Corpus Christi City Council this week that commercial trotlines are jamming up the shoreline along Laguna Shores between Lola Johnson and Graham roads. Under state rules commercial fisherpersons are allowed twenty trotlines each up to 600 feet with hooks every three feet which must be baited with live bait. That means each commercial fisherperson can have 12,000 feet of line out with 4000 hooks and many of them are choosing the same spot between Graham and Lola Johnson Roads which, according to what was reported to the city council, is crowding out boaters and other fisherpersons.
Encantada Bridge Nothing is certain yet but it appears the proposed bridge over the canal at Encantada will not be on the bond ballot that goes before voters in November. The political pushback from OTB pushed the bridge off the ballot but backers of the street bonds also on the ballot know that if Island voters line up against the either of the two bond proposals in question our numbers could derail them. So to keep us on board the alternative is to place two beach access roads on the ballot to give Islanders something to support. The first reading of the bond language is to go before the city council at their meeting on Tuesday, July 29 with the second and final reading at their August 5 meeting. The matter is sure to come up at the August 5h meeting of the Island Strategic Action Committee but that 5:30 p.m. meeting will be after the council meeting that afternoon when the bond language will be set so the ISAC will have little (no) formal input. ISAC voted unanimously in its July meeting to support the Encantada bridge but City Manager Ron Olson advised the council at its meeting this week to eliminate the Encantada project, which appeared headed for a council fight, and replace it with the beach access roads. Stay cool everybody and say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Texas A&M Mariculture Project in Port Aransas Shutting Down By Sara Hendricks
Weed tracking
The dry conditions are making beach driving risky in patches but generally good, except on the natural city beaches south of Bob Hall Pier where only the four-wheelers can safely tread. Conditions for beachgoers along the seawall continue to get more confused as the sand pumped from the Packery Channel piles up against the seawall making most of the beach there unusable for either drivers or pedestrians. There is now fully eight feet of fine sand piled up against the seawall that blows and makes most of the beach there unsuitable for much of anything.
Weekly
Beach Width Variability
Dr. Addison L. Lawrence, Ph.D., project leader and scientist in charge of the A&M facility, had no comment on the changes. Dr. Juan Landivar, resident director at A&M in Corpus Christi, was out of town and unavailable for comment.
PINS Checkpoint Nets Two DUI Arrests
The DUI checkpoint set up by the National Park Service at the entrance to Padre Island National Seashore last Saturday detained a total of 146 vehicles resulting in six driver being sent for secondary screening and two DUI arrests, according to information released by the park.
In addition to the 2 DUI arrests, there were four open container violations and one citation for marijuana. In addition, according to the park release, another “40 drivers passing through admitted to consuming alcohol while at Padre Island National Seashore on Saturday.”
Since Memorial Day weekend a total of twenty drivers have been arrested for operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol with eight of those being on 4th of July weekend.
Great Time to See a Kemp’s Ridley Hatchling By Bob Algeo and Dale Rankin The move to remove vehicles from the beach along the Michael J. Ellis Seawall took one step forward and one step back on Tuesday as the Corpus Christi City Council stopped short of a ban and directed the city staff to make preparations to close the southern end of the seawall to traffic as part one of a three-phase plan that, if fully implemented, would
By Donna J. Shaver, Ph.D.
rearrange vehicular access from the south end of the seawall to the South Packery Jetty. The council directed city staff to make preparations for implementation of Phase 1 of the plan, sponsored by District 4 City Councilwoman Colleen McIntyre, which would remove traffic from the portions of the beach which are 150 feet or less wide; which means
the southern portion of the seawall beginning just south of the Holiday Inn. McIntyre’s motion, approved unanimously by the council, directs the staff to find the answers to two questions: First, does the existing
Division of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery, National Park Service, Padre Island National Seashore e-mail: Donna_Shaver@nps.gov
Beach Driving continued on A5
A Little Island History
Islander “Led-san” Hits .319 in Japanese League By Dotson Lewis, Special to the Island Moon dlewis1@stx.rr.com Dotson’s Note: This is part 2 of the article that I wrote for the July 17th Sports Talk column for The Island Moon. Many thanks to all of the “Moon Monkeys” who read and liked the article.
Chasing a Dream-To Be A Professional Baseball PlayerPart 2
Dotson Batting Practice in Japan-May 1947
After finishing Army basic training, I shipped out to Japan arriving in early May 1947. The war had been over for about 20 months and Japan was starting to rebuild. We had been on the troopship USNS David Shanks for 9 days when docking in Yokohama, Japan. From there we
went by train to Zama, Japan. As we got off the train each GI gave his last name and last four (digits of our serial number) to a Sergeant with a clip board. When I recited the required name and number, the Sergeant looked up, he hadn’t done that with the first 20 or so that had disembarked, and said “the Old Man is looking for you, grab your bags and put them on the jeep and wait for me.” The others, all of whom had been on the ship with me, were moving toward a large barracks-type building. After finishing the check-in, the Sergeant
Baseball continued on A8
If you want to see a public release of Kemp’s ridley hatchlings at Padre Island National Seashore this is a great time for you to try. Between about July 22 and July 29, hatchlings will be released from 34 nests that will hatch. Between about August 1 and August 10, hatchlings from 15 nests will be released. In fact, these will be the best chances remaining this year if you would like to attend a release or have company coming from out of town that would like to see the hatchlings.
We expect to be able to hold public releases on several of these mornings since so many nests will hatch at once. Hatchlings must be released
Turtles continued on A8