Corpusfishing.com

[The Trash Heap]

Won't post the whole editorial as it's not all beach related. To read it all, go to http://www.caller.com/ccct/cda/article_print/0,1983,CCCT_840_4711364_ARTICLE-DETAIL-PRINT,00.html
The parts I take issue with read:
"However, as the current wrangles over development on Padre Island and on the city's bayfront demonstrate, not everyone has bought into the same vision about the future of the city. This is hardly surprising. However, we shouldn't let debates over major economic opportunities deteriorate into a shouting match over how far someone can carry a barbecue grill. What is needed is not timidity, but boldness of vision...."

"What has sometimes been missing is here is an audacity of vision, a willingness to challenge the status quo, whether that is island development, a remake of the bayfront or just adding another high school. And that's an element no economic report can gauge."

The editor is intentionally misleading the reader again into thinking the "current wrangle," as he calls it, is about the development of the island when opponents of the beach restriction have repeatedly said that's not the issue. Nor is the issue merely that of hauling barbecue grills. It's about all the many ramifications of losing the right to drive on a public beach just so that a private developer can make more profits from the public's loss of access. That isn't boldness or audacity of vision, it's old-fashioned greed and unmitigated gall. And the editor's hoping we'll forget the economic analysis published in the C-T a while back that said tourism couldn't generate the boost this area needs and deserves. If development were really the issue, we'd still need leaders with the vision to read the lines of that analysis, not to read off the script another entrepreneur's handed them.

The answer Bruce is seeking in his LTTE is that each pass of the beach grooming equipment takes some of the sand along with the seaweed. Hauling the combination away from the beach entirely as he suggests would eventually leave no beach at all to access.

Caller.com

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URL: http://www.caller.com/ccct/letters_to_the_editor/article/0,1641,CCCT_841_4711370,00.html
Letters to the Editor: 05.19.06

May 19, 2006

Trashing dune line

Beach access? Make our beach attractive for developers? Fine. But consider this as well: The beach between Bob Hall Pier and the condos is trashed. For reasons unknown, the parks department has decided that trashing the dune line is OK.

All the sargassum (seaweed) that floats in is being dumped at the foot of the dune line. This is getting ugly. Growing up in Corpus Christi, I remember running up and down the sand dunes and standing on the highest point looking out at the water. But who would even want to now?

Consider this: Dump the rotting seaweed at the foot of the dunes. Hurricane season pushes a surge to the dune line, which is now 30 feet closer to the water. Now all that rotting seaweed is dragged back down onto the beach. Huh?

I realize removing the seaweed is a plus for beach goers, but if we want our parks department to clean the seaweed off the beach we had better give them a little more direction on where to dump it. How about behind the dunes in the thousands of acres of grasslands nobody sees, instead of trashing our dunes on the waterside?

Get involved, and let's stop this trashing of our dune line.

Bruce Netek
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The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!

[kweber]

this is from someone somewhat connected to agriculture. does not the rotting seaweed slightly replenish the dune sand to support the vegitation that holds the dunes in their place? the dunes in West Texas and near So. Cal. near Mexico and also in the Namibia Desert in Africa move to the whim of the wind. nature deposits the weed at the base of the dunes and in turn it fertilizes the dunes enough to support grasses that hold the dunes in their place. moving this nutrient to the back of the dunes will slowly move the dunes back and expose the beach to erosion. tropical storms would clear the beach of sand dunes and the barrier island would dissappear. Johnny French, please correct any errors I have made, this is just my obsevation on beach dynamics. Kurt.

[The Trash Heap]

Kurt, your analysis is correct in all regards. You can add that the seaweed is not only a key nutrient component of the island's dune ecosystems, but also takes the first step in the physical building of the the dunes by trapping sand as close as possible to the waves. The wider the dune field, the safer we all are from hurricanes.

The fauna of the lower beach and the adjacent surf, including everything from coquina clams to pompano to piping plovers, have no in-situ rooted vegetation to support their food web, and consequently need that imported sargassum nutrient supply even more than the dune ecosystem. Sand isn't a good medium for holding nutrients, which break down and are leached or blown away readily, so steady re-supplies from the sargassum drift each spring and summer are very important to the health of the island.

It's a shame, and costly in several different ways, that we let aesthetics supercede Mother Nature. We shouldn't treat seaweed like trash, but rather like the treasure it is.
_________________
The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!

[JerryB]

It basically is the sea weed that builds the island. Yes while it is coming ashore it may not be as nice as we would like but it makes everything else possible. One thing to note is the only part of the beach that has had a major beach erosion problem is the part where there is no dunes and the sea weed is hauled off. Guess where.

[Bluffer]

Good point Jerry.
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-STAY THIRSTY MY FRIENDS!-

[Tyler]

[JerryB]

Give that man a cigar