Inside the Moon
SMA A2
Beach to Bay A6
Sea Turtle Nests A9
The
Issue 632
Island Moon
The voice of The Island since 1996
May 26, 2016
Around The Island
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Island Teens Train Wild Mustangs
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com
That buzzing sound you hear is not the refrigerator running it’s the buzzing of jillions of mosquitos taking advantage of the recent rains. We islanders have put a few extra moves into the Skeeter Dance this week as the little buggers have turned the evening hours into an ear-buzzing, Skeeter Dancing extravaganza! There’s probably a good reason why the Good Lord made mosquitos but we Islanders would be hard pressed to understand it in these watery times. If He had rested that day there probably wouldn’t be many complaints from our little sandbar. The city won’t be spraying on The Island for now. They’ve only got two trucks for the whole city and their frank disclosure to the city council this week was that while spraying kills about 30% of them by the next day they are back at full strength. It’s going to be a long Swatting Season this year folks. And speaking of water…the high water we have had hereabouts of late began migrating out Tuesday. For the past few weeks we’ve had about ten inches more of it in our canal system than we usually do this time of year. Island decks have been awash in high water for several weeks now. One advantage is that it is now possible to get small boats through the skinny water between Primavera and Carlos 5th Court on the back side of The Island. It’s still pretty skinny but if you can get up on plane you should be able to make it through ungrounded.
Whitecap Water Plant City planners this week unveiled early plans for revamping the city’s wastewater treatment system, not to be confused with the currently malfunctioning drinking water treatment system, at a cost of $220 million. They offered the City Council four options for approval and all four include keeping the Whitecap Wastewater Treatment Plant on The Island in operation. There had been talk of turning that plant into a pump station to move ah, product…from The Island OTB. This of course would have been the first reversal of such flow in recent memory and could have freed up the land around the plant for other types of development. That apparently won’t happen and The Island, likely not for the last time, will be left to deal with its own…stuff.
Political season We are coming into the political season and voter registration is up by almost 1000 voters since the last city elections two years ago. At 7154 registered voters a united Island vote will go a long way toward winning seats on the city council. Former Chairman of the Island Strategic Action Committee Greg Smith is expected to announce this week he will run for the District 4 Council seat being vacated by Colleen McIntyre.
Island growth The drop in gas prices and the subsequent drop in activity in the Eagle Ford Shale play hasn’t slowed the pace of home building on The Island. As of this week 65 houses are under construction on The Island and almost two hundred are in the pipeline. The price of oil hit a sevenmonth high this week, pushing up on $50 per barrel. We’ll see you at the HEB Thursday evening everybody as we get ready for the beginning of our 100-day tourist season. Here they come folks! We’ll see you at the Ski Basin. In the meantime say hello if you see us Around The Island.
By Dale Rankin According to the Bureau of Land Management there are more than 67,000 wild Mustang horses roaming public lands in the Western United States. Each year horse lovers around the state and country adopt several thousand of them out and train them for 120 days in preparation for a meet to see who has taught their new horse the most maneuvers.
Since 2007 over 6,700 Mustangs have been adopted through Mustang Heritage Foundation events and programs. This year two Islanders took up the challenge and are training two horses for the meet in Fort Worth in September. Grace Walsh and Travis Moore, 9th Graders at Incarnate Word Academy, each adopted two-year-old mares born in the wild into the Triple B Herd in Nevada in 2014 and work with them several hours each day. “We teach them basic skills,” Moore said, “Things like backing up, jumping into a truck, we can saddle break them but in the Junior Division we are not allowed to ride them in competition.”
Mustangs continued on A6
Hurricane Season Starts Wednesday. Change from El Niño to La Niña Could Cause More Active Season Somewhere in the vast Pacific Ocean a change is taking place that could have an impact on our Island in the next several months. The 2016 Atlantic hurricane season begins Wednesday, June 1, and Dr. Philippe Tissot, an Associate Research Professor at the Conrad Blucher Institute (CBI) in Corpus Christi, says that 2016 is likely transitioning from an El Niño to a neutral or La Niña season in the Pacific and La Niña years correlate with higherthan-normal tropical storm activity as compared to El Niño, which typically leads to fewer storms in the Atlantic.
Island United Political Action Committee Annual Meeting June 9 Island now has more than 7000 registered voters As much as 7% of the total votes in the November City of Corpus Christi elections could come from The Island. If past Presidential elections are an indicator of voter turnout about 100,000 voters will cast ballots in the upcoming November election cycle, and there are now 7154 registered voters on The Island. Getting those Island voters to unite behind candidates in races for the Mayor and council seats in the City
IUPAC continued on A5
Live Music A16
On the Rocks A11
The Climate Prediction Center at CBI in its May 16 update states that El Niño is still present but weakening and gives “about a 75% chance of La Niña during the fall and winter 2016-17. “We already had our first 2016 hurricane in January, which was a rare occurrence,” Tissot said. At present, predictions are for a “near average season” from most but not all forecasting groups. The Weather Channel predicts 12-13 named storms, including five to six
Hurricane continued on A3
Photo By Miles Merwin
Island Water System is End of the Line
Irony of Ironies By Dale Rankin Last weekend crews from the City of Corpus Christi began opening fire hydrants on the Island as part of a plan to end the longest boil order in the city in recent memory. Island hydrants on the southern end of The Island represent the end of a thirtymile long water system and crews trying to move chlorine from the north end of the system through to the south end were draining Island hydrants as part of the effort. Even before the city began a series of boil orders in recent years water quality on The Island was a problem. The “stale” water caused by deadend water mains on Island fingertip streets was identified as a problem
Water continued on A9
Hydrant on Sea Pines
Work Begins to Improve Two Island Beach Access Roads Two Beach Access roads on The Island will get major makeovers after the Corpus Christi City Council this week approved engineering design contracts for $3.5 million worth of work. They are Beach Access Road #3A at the north end of the Michael J. Ellis Seawall, and Beach Access Road #2 just north of Fire Station #16 on State Highway 361. Funding for the projects comes from a 2014 Bond Election. The proposed improvements include replacing the existing Hot-Mix-Asphalt-Concrete (HMAC) with reinforced concrete pavement structure with required grading for drainage, slope and soil stabilization, pavement markings, and signage.
Beach Access Road 2
Project Location
Beach Access Road 3A
MAP The entryway VICINITY to Road #3A, at the northern end of Windward Drive, will be moved slightly east to avoid remove the current circular entrance from Bartholomew Avenue. NOT TO SCALE
Project Number: E15111
CITY COUNCIL EXHIBIT CITY OF CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING SERVICES
Construction on both projects is schedule to begin in the fall, after the completion of the summer tourist season.
A little Island history
The Island Before Civilization Showed Up Editor’s note: In the past two issues we have included a story written about Padre Island in The Saturday Evening Post in 1948. The story was based around an Islander named Louis Rawalt who moved to The Island in 1925 and lived a life that would be impossible here now. As you will see from the stories he built cabins from material he found on the beach at several locations and knew The Island in a way that probably no one else ever will. He collected relics from over thirty sites on The Island and knew where all of the shipwrecks were to be found, including the Spanish gold ships from the 16th Century and when the Padre Island National Seashore was founded it was Rawalt who led the researchers around The Island and showed them ten sites which they studied as part of the due diligence for founding the park. Everything Rawalt found he documented; where he found the road traveled by the troops of General Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War, the long-
gone Singer Ranch and numerous shipwrecks. Rawalt was a smart and educated man who studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. Fortunately, Rawalt left behind an oral history as told to his friend Cash Asher and we will run it here in the next few issues. He called his story Island of Reprieve and it begins in a hospital where he was recovering from a mustard gas attack he suffered through in World War I.
The Island of Reprieve By Louis Rawalt It was the summer of 1925. I was seated near the desk of the chief surgeon in the Military Hospital at Chelsea. The bulky form of the surgeon was across the desk from me. He looked at me with speculative eyes. Finally, he said: “If you have any business that needs attention, you had better return to your home
Louis Raywalt and his son Charlie in the Satuday Evening Post in Texas and take care of it.” He leafed through a chart on his desk, “Prognosis, six months,” He looked straight at me. “A lot of them didn’t have any time left,” he said encouragingly. “I’ll do it,” I replied. “I’ll have to.” I rose and started for the door. I had expected his verdict, and had already made up my mind what I
History continued on A7