Richard L. Watson, Ph.D.
March, 1996 Forum article Corpus Christi Caller Times

TEN YEARS AGO PACKERY CHANNEL WAS A BAD IDEA.
IT IS STILL A BAD IDEA.

There is nothing new about Packery Channel. There have been several forum presentations and numerous letters to the editor supporting the opening of Packery Channel. Many of these state that this is a new proposal and previous objections to the project are not applicable. It has even been stated by Naismith engineering that comparison should not be made with the very unsuccessful Fish Pass. These statements are far from the truth. The only change is that the developers now want the taxpayer to build and maintain the project. The natural systems affecting the success of Packery Channel have not changed.

Major coastal engineering structures which intercept the flow of sand along the beaches should not be made unless they are absolutely necessary. In the vicinity of Packery Channel, the sediment transport in the surf zone carries about 726,000 cubic yards of sand along the beach each year. This amounts to one 8 cubic yard dump truck each 6 minutes all year long. That is about 250 dump trucks per day. Coastal engineering structures such as passes and jetties interrupt this system. Modifying a 250 dump truck per day natural transport system risks major beach erosion problems in the future.

Coastal engineering structures along the barrier islands of New Jersey have so altered the natural system that they now have rock jetties nearly every city block in some areas and still have to artificially nourish the beaches by pumping sand onto them regularly. New Jersey got into that predicament by building a few structures such as jetties and seawalls which affected the sediment flow along the coast. This of course interrupted the flow of sand and starved other beaches resulting in a need for yet more coastal engineering structures. It never stops. {See Photos of N.J. Coast Below}

Erosion of the beaches in front of the Padre island seawall is being used as partial justification for opening Packery Channel. The sand dredged from Packery Channel can be used to nourish the beach in front of the seawall. The beach erosion was caused by the seawall and now a second engineering structure is suggested as the remedy. That problem can be solved without building new jetties by dredging sand from the back side of Padre Island onto the beach. Interrupting the natural transport system which carries the sand which maintains our beaches is always a risky proposition which generally leads to more beach erosion at other locations and a succession of ugly, expensive and not very successful coastal engineering structures.

The history of the shoaling of the Fish Pass and the water flow through it should serve as the model against which to judge the probable success or failure of Packery Channel. The Fish Pass was constructed in a far better location for success than Packery Channel. Packery channel will connect with the very shallow nearly completely filled north end of Laguna Madre. There is effectively no basin to support tidal flow. The Fish Pass shoaled to about 4 feet from 11 feet at the Gulf mouth in just three months and shoaled to only 2 feet at the bay mouth in less than one year. Most of the time, the Gulf mouth was impassable to even a 16 ft. Boston whaler with a skilled operator because the jetty channel contained breaking surf. By June of 1975, the channel near the jetties was reduced to a cross section of only 277 square feet. A short time later the Fish Pass closed completely.

Packery Channel will not restore the upper Laguna Madre and Corpus Christi Bay to the natural condition which existed before construction of the Kennedy Causeway, and the Corpus Christi Ship Channel. The ship channel is bigger than can be maintained by the natural tidal and river flow and does not leave enough natural circulation to help maintain an artificial pass. The maintenance expense of Packery Channel will be enormous. All tidal inlets on barrier island coasts transport a huge amount of beach sand through them and deposit it in the bay. This is how the north end of Laguna Madre between the Kennedy Causeway and Corpus Christi bay became nearly completely filled before the turn of the century when Packery Channel was open. It is how Harbor Island at and the surrounding flats came to exist inland of the historic location of the natural Aransas Pass inlet. Packery Channel is no exception and huge amounts of our beach sand will flow in and further shoal and restrict circulation in Laguna Madre.

The amount of tidal exchange through Packery Channel will be insignificant with regard to the volume of water in Laguna Madre and will affect the water quality of Laguna Madre at most for only a few miles. The maximum amount of water entering the Fish Pass in a flood tidal cycle during its first year of operation was only 118 million cubic feet. That sounds like a lot of water, but it is only 4.2 feet deep spread out over one square mile. Spread out over all of northern Laguna Madre it is less than six hundredths of an inch. In addition, water masses of different salinities such as the bay water and the Gulf water do not mix well. Packery Channel will have even smaller flow than the Fish Pass. The effect on salinity, and brown tide will probably not be felt beyond one or two miles from the pass.. It is comparable to affecting the water quality of an Olympic swimming pool with a soda straw.

Packery Channel will be a hazard to navigation. Packery Channel has been touted as being a safer boat pass than the Ship Channel. The commercial traffic in the ship channel is no hazard at all compared with the hazard of running a narrow, shallow inlet on an outgoing tide with an onshore wind. This will be the condition on many afternoons when small boats are returning home from a day on the Gulf. Many of the boat operators will have neither the skill nor a suitable boat for running a surfing inlet right next to the rocks. It took the Fish Pass only a few months to shoal from a safely navigable small boat inlet to one nearly impossible to get through even with a skilled boat operator.

In thirty years of experience studying the beaches, passes, surf, currents and bays of the Texas Coast and a lifetime of operating boats along all of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts from Brownsville to New York, I have never seen an inlet built or proposed to be built in a worse location than Packery Channel.


Richard L. Watson, Ph.D.
Marine Geologist