Port
Aransas is Trucking Dune Sand to
the Sea
Port
Aransas Beach Maintenance is
Trucking huge amounts of sand from the upper beach to the water.
This is contrary to the controlling state regulations which
state:
"All sand moved or
redistributed
due to beach maintance activites shall be returned to the area between
the line of vegetation and mean high tide." This does NOT
mean
putting the sand back in the edge of the water!
The
front end loader is
removing sand
from the upper beach where it accumulated on the roadway and was then
graded up toward the dunes. This is pure sand and contains
zero
Sargassum seaweed.
Note
the huge quantity of sand
that is
being removed and placed back in the water where it will be washed away
down current and will not be available to build our natural dune
seawall stronger.
It
takes several loads to full the dump
truck.
The
dump truck than dumps the
sand in
a long row of sand piles along the beach at low tide. This
sand
will be washed away along the beach when the tide returns.
This
is contrary to state regulations that require that sand moved for beach
maintenance must be placed between the high tide line and the
vegetation line. It is required that the sand be placed above
the
high tide line, so that it can blow inland to enhance the natural
growth of the dunes, our natural dune seawall. In fact, the sand is
being removed from
the very place that it is needed to give Port Aransas protection from
hurricane storm surge overwash.
Nearly every other Texas
beach community, including South Padre Island, Corpus Christi (at the
seawall), Quintana Beach, Surfside Village, West Galveston, and Bolivar
peninsula are begging the state and federal government to place sand on
their beaches AT THE EXACT SAME LOCATION WHERE WE ARE REMOVING IT FROM
OUR BEACH.
This
is just the amount of our
precious dune sand trucked to the surf in a single morning. Imagine how
strong our natural dune seawall could be, if it is allowed to build and
vegetate naturally for our protection. Remember, this natural
process which protects our town from hurricane overwash is free to us.
We only have to let nature build our seawall.
