Waiting for the next swell.

Universal Truths Of The Shoreline

2012-01-31T08:57:00.000-06:00

I came across this very interesting article on CoastalCare.org this morning called "Shoreline Engineering; Stabilizing the Unstable". It lists common beach engineering and armoring practices and their harmful disadvantages to the overall barrier island system.

In it it also has 6 "universal truths" about our dynamic shorelines along our barrier islands and common sense solutions that very few if any coastal communities really ever consider. In essence they are hard truths that in most cases must eventually be considered and accepted.

Below is an excerpt from the article with the first two truths of our shoreline.

There is no erosion problem until a structure is built on a shoreline. Beach erosion is a common, expected event, not a natural disaster. Shoreline erosion in its natural state is not a threat to barrier islands. It is, in fact, an integral part of island evolution and the dynamic system of the entire barrier island. When a beach retreats it does not mean that the island is disappearing; the island is migrating. Many developed islands are migrating at surprisingly rapid rates, though only the few investigators who pore over aerial photographs are aware of it. Whether the beach is growing or shrinking does not concern the visiting swimmer, surfer, hiker, or fisherman. It is when man builds a “permanent” structure in this zone of change that a problem develops.
Construction by man on the shoreline causes shoreline changes. The sandy beach exists in a delicate balance with sand supply, beach shape, wave energy, and sea-level rise. This is called the dynamic equilibrium. Most construction on or near the shoreline changes this balance and reduces the natural flexibility of the beach (Figure 22). The result is change which often threatens man-made structures. Dune-removal, which often precedes construction, reduces the sand supply used by the beach to adjust its profile during storms. Beach cottages-even those on stilts-may obstruct the normal sand exchange between the beach and the shelf during storms. Similarly, engineering devices interrupt or modify the natural cycle.

The entire article can be read here.

2012 Dune Restoration Totals Surpass 24,000 Plants!

2012-01-29T17:02:00.000-06:00

Saturday, January 28th, 2012 saw the third Dune Restoration event of the planting season and the first of the New Year held by the City of South Padre Island and the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter. The 2011/2012 season is the second year of an aggressive effort by the Surfrider Foundation and SPI to restore lost dunes and expand existing ones in order to create a continuous dune line within the City of South Padre Island's beaches that provide natural protection for property owners and infrastructure, provide habitat for local flora and fauna and naturally preserve the public beaches by providing dunes that will help them recover in the event of large tidal and storm events! In the 2010/'11 season, the partnership and over 400 volunteers gave 1200 hours of their time and yielded 44,000 new bitter panicum and sea oats planted with over 80,000 square feet of new dunes being created! In addition the volunteer coordination efforts of Surfrider Foundation saved the City approximately $50,000 in labor costs.

Since our first planting this season we have surpassed the 24,000 plant mark and could break last year's numbers if we are able to continue planting into May! Saturday saw a huge improvements in conditions over our December Planting that had a combination of rain, cold weather, high winds and some of the worst Red Tide aerosols I have ever experienced . As a result only 15 very hardcore volunteers braved the conditions. Instead of that we had the return of beautiful weather, no Red Tide and 67 volunteers including a lot of regular volunteers like the Gorgas-Science Society who have become dune restoration experts!

I, as well as the Surfrider Foundation and the City of South Padre Island Coastal Resources Department are always stoked to see the consistently strong turnout each time. It is great to know that so many local and valley residents and students are so interested and invested in naturally preserving our beaches!

THANK YOU ALL! See Y'all in February!

Don't forget about Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter's Surfrider Shindig; Music and Art For Our Oceans, Waves an Beaches this coming Saturday February 4th at Louie's Backyard! The Paint-Off begins at 10AM and the Shindig kicks off at 4PM with Junbug starting the party off with their Reggae jams and Moving Matter shutting it down with their radical combination of jazz, blues, rock and trance! In between is a huge shrimp boil and some great auctions and raffles including chances at United/Continental Airline Tickets, Surfboards and much much more. More on that on Tuesday!

Surfrider Shindig 2012 Brings You The "Paint-Off"!

2012-01-27T08:49:00.001-06:00

Now that you know about the uniquely talented bands (Junbug and Moving Matter) that the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter is providing for your entertainment along with the Shrimp Boil for our 3rd Annual Surfrider Shindig; Music and Art For Our Oceans, Waves and Beaches let me let you in on probably the most unique aspect of the event.

Starting at 10AM on February 4th across from Louie's Backyard at Gravity Park, the Paint-Off will be going on until the kickoff of the Shindig! This is the most unique art event on South Padre Island and gives the patron a great opportunity to turn something old, used, worn or discarded into something new and interesting that they will want to show off. Bring in your old surfboard, skateboard, skimboard, table, chair, driftwood, etc. and a team of talented artists from across the state of Texas will turn them, under your direction, into customized pieces of art that you will want to give center stage so everyone can admire it!

This year we are very fortunate to have John Olvey, who came up with this concept in Corpus Christi a few years back, coming back to lead the team of artists. Julissa Hampton, who grew up in Harlingen and now resides with her Husband and children in the Galveston area, will also be coming back this year. Local painter and sculptor William Lloyd will be returning as well who last year actually starting painting people's blue jeans! Rounding out the cadre of artists will be newcomer to the "Paint-Off" but not to the surfing community, Becky McCormack who actually custom painted my 2 year old's first surfboard with a turtle last year!

The newest addition to the Paint-Off will be face painting by Elizabeth Lloyd!

This fun interactive art event is also an incredible bargain and all the proceeds will be going to the Surfrider Foundation South Texas' efforts to protect and preserve our ocean, waves and beaches through activism, research and education! Admission to the Paint-Off is free and for just $1 a minute (minimum 15 minutes) and $50 for an entire hour with the artists, you can walk away with a rejuvenated item that has been custom painted just for you!

Remember tickets for the Shindig are now on sale at On The Beach, Island Native and Paragraphs on Padre Blvd. for just $30 for a pair of tickets. They will be $20 at the door on February 4th. Raffle tickets are also available that could get you two roundtrip United/Continental tickets to anywhere in the contiguous 48 United States, Alaska, Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean for just $10!

Hope to see you all in a week!

Surfrider Shindig 2012 Brings You Junbug!

2012-01-24T16:48:00.000-06:00

Do you love having a shrimp boil with your friends and family on a Saturday afternoon? Well that is exactly what the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter is going to throw on February 4th at Louie's Backyard with the Surfrider Shindig; Music and Art For Our Oceans, Waves and Beaches except ours has been stepped up about 99 notches!

You now know about our headlining band, Moving Matter but the band that will kick off everything is one of my personal favorites in the area. Junbug has been a huge supporter of the Surfrider Foundation from the beginning and they have done it all for us without asking for anything in return! Junior "Junbug" Valdez, John-Paul Fedigan and Jaime Espinoza have been drumming out their tight reggae rhythms since our first Shindig in 2010 and they keep getting better and better. By the time they finish their set on Saturday February 4th, you will be tapping your feet, dancing around and singing along with the most talented reggae band in the Rio Grande Valley while you check out our silent and live auction items!

What Junior and Junbug have contributed to the Surfrider Foundatiuon can never be repaid to them and we can not ever express our gratitude enough!

Come on out to the Surfrider Shindig on Saturday, February 4th at Louie's Backyard and be prepared to dance, laugh and have a great time with hundreds of friends and family that all love our oceans, waves and beaches and want to protect them! Tickets are on sale right now at Paragraphs on Padre Blvd., Island Native Surfhouse and On the Beach for 2 tickets for $30. They will be $20 each at the door! United/Continental Airline Raffle Tickets are also on sale now for $10 each. You might be the lucky one to leave the Shindig with 2 roundtrip tickets to anywhere in the lower 48 United States, Alaska, Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean!

Meanwhile here is some samples of Junbug to get you frothing for the Shindig in two weeks!

Surfrider Shindig 2012 Brings You Moving Matter!

2012-01-22T21:44:00.000-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, ocean and beach lovers, beachcombers and surfers we are only two weeks away from a day long festival of art and music for our local ocean, waves and beaches! Yes I am talking about the 3rd Annual Surfrider Shindig: Music and Art For Our Oceans, Waves and Beaches! As I write this I am listening to music from our headlining band this year; Moving Matter and I am stoked!

This year's event which will benefit the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter and their efforts to protect and preserve our oceans, waves and beaches for the enjoyment of ALL people and our ongoing scholarship program will have the usual unique opportunities it always does such as interactive organic art event known as the Paint Off where you can bring in just about anything and have it customized by an incredibly talented artist to take home and the silent and live auctions, we are continuing our effort to bring in fresh and talented bands to the area for our members and supporters to enjoy! This year's offering is our headliner Moving Matter from Austin, TX!

Moving Matter was last on South Padre Island in 2007 with the inaugural South Padre Island International Music Festival. The talent and scale of that music festival was through the roof and Moving Matter was among the top tier talent! Surfrider Foundation is bringing back Moving Matter's blues, jazz, funk and trance infused improvisational jam style music to Louie's Backyard to cap of its daylong celebration of our oceans, waves and beaches!

I can promise you that through its entrancing sound and lights, Moving Matter will provide a unique musical experience that South Padre Island rarely gets to enjoy! But enough of me going on, check out Moving Matter's sounds at Reverbnation and the below performance videos for yourself!

Tickets for the 2012 Surfrider Shindig are now available at On the Beach, Island Native and Paragraphs on Padre Blvd for a discounted price of 2 for $30! They will be $20 each at the door! Your ticket will get you all this great live music and into the shrimp boil! Other band and artist features to follow! You can like us on Facebook here!

Is The South Padre Island Shoreline About To Shift?

2012-01-12T10:02:00.000-06:00

The City of South Padre Island is currently in the process of amending its Beach Access and Dune Protection plan, mostly with small details such as changing the old Beach and Dune Taskforce references to the newly formed Shoreline Taskforce which not only oversees the Gulf side of South Padre island but The Laguna Madre side. One of the new additions is the most recent shoreline changes report by HD Shiner Mosley in April of 2010 and what it included were two very interesting observations.

Some observations backed up common knowledge of the erosion and accretion of the southern end of South Padre Island that includes both the City of South Padre Island and Cameron County beaches such as Isla Blanca Park, Andy Bowie, Park, EK Atwood Park and the beaches north to the Cameron County line. This included the the counter intuitive accretion just north of the Brazos Santiago Pass in the shadow of the north jetty. After all our main longshore transport mechanism of sand moves sand north from the Rio Grande River and the pair of jetties should have been blocking this transport causing erosion and shoreline retreat on the downdrift side of the north jetty. However, HDR believes that this is due to the creation of a ebb tidal shoal after improvements to the pass were made in the 1930's that may have migrated toward the north side of the jetty and become attached to the shoreline. Another contributing factor is that in the event of northers during the winter, sand is washed south into the north jetty area and becomes trapped in a sink there where currents can not move the sand back north again or out to sea. The second observation was that while there are some sections of the beach that are stable and may be slightly accreting, beaches 3 miles and on from the pass have been eroding from 5'- 10' annually. This of course is most obvious in the area of beach that the Tiki and La Quinta sit and serve as stationary markers showing where the beach erodes rapidly without any beach renourishment projects to help supplement the sand transport system.

The first of the surprising observations to me was that due to the accretion of the southern beaches and the erosion of the northern beaches, the general orientation of the beach on South Padre Island has shifted 2 degrees to the north-northwest since 1937. Could this have an effect on our surfing conditions here on South Padre Island? I would say yes. Older surfers who have been frequenting the lineup at Isla Blanca Park for decades have often complained that the quality of waves have been getting worse. I have always attributed that to the amount of sand that has been relatively recently trapped in the area just north of the north jetty of the Brazos Santiago Pass but a shoreline orientation change could have definitely affected our surf quality as well. Perhaps it is a combination of the two.

The Second observation that I found interesting and may cause our surf to actually get better (thinking positively) over the next several years or decades is that the ebb tidal shoal that may have been contributing to the accretion of the beach at Isla Blanca Park seems to now be in decline or gone altogether contradicting the historic trend mentioned above. HDR believes that by the 1980's the ebb tidal shoal was becoming significantly deflated and contributing less and less to onshore sand transport. Perhaps that shoal is now completely spent and now we will see a significant retreat of the beach and depletion of the outside sand bar that robs energy from medium and smaller swells at Isla Blanca Park resulting in a shoreline orientation shift back to the east improving our surf conditions. Of course this would also imperil the two pavilions and roadway Cameron County Constructed extremely close to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Anyway you look at it, the beaches of South Padre Island are always moving and shifting. Historically it has been accretion on the southern beaches and erosion on the northern beaches. Perhaps we are seeing a historical shift to the south that would drastically change the beach and the surf for decades to come.

Of course the perceived degradation of our surf could be the result of the shift starting back a few years back and it will continue to do so. I'm hoping for a more positive outcome.

Its Surfrider Shindig Time on South Padre Island!

2012-01-10T06:32:00.000-06:00

It's that time of the year again everyone! It's time for the annual Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter Fundraiser and party known as the Surfrider Shindig: Music and Art for our Oceans, Waves and Beaches! In its 3rd year, this year's Shindig looks to be the best time to get together with and enjoy the fellowship of those that love their beach and the recreation and business oprotunities it provides us !

Once again, The Shindig on February 4th, a day long celebration of the South Texas Chapter's achievements and next year's promise will provide a day of unique entertainment opportunities for the residents a-nd visitors of South Padre Island who love and want to preserve our biggest asset; our beach and the Gulf of Mexico! The event kicks off with the "Paint-Off" where Corpus Christi's acclaimed surf artist John Olvey, Harlingen native and Galveston area resident surfer Julissa Hampton , South Padre Island local William Lloyd and South Padre Island's own Sea Gypsy Becky McCormack will be on hand to turn surfboards, skimboards, chairs, driftwood or anything else into customized personal pieces of art for the attendee for small donations to the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter! Running from 10AM- 4PM at Gravity Park across from Louie's Backyard, the "Paint-Off" is the perfect warm-up for the party that will follow!

At 4PM, The Shindig itself kicks off upstairs at Louie's Backyard with live music from local surfer/skater Junior Valdez and John-Paul Fedigan of Junbug with their reggae infused acoustic music, the opening of the silent auction featuring Texas surf photography and art along with contributions from local SPI businesses and our new shrimp boil! After Junbug finishes off their set, Austin's own Moving Matter will take the stage to carry you into the end of the silent auction and the live auction and the conclusion of the evening! Along the way will be raffles including tickets from United/Continental Airlines, a classic longboard donated by Mike McGonigle and more!

The day is ultimately a celebration of what the Surfrider Foundation's mission is; to protect and preserve our oceans, waves and beaches for the enjoyment of ALL people! All proceeds will go to the South Texas Chapter's efforts in this mission such as preserving public beach access and our beach parks, restoring and preserving our dunes and our beaches and our educational efforts such as International Surfing Day and public outreach and and our college scholarship program.

We are still looking for donations and contributions for the event. If you are interested, please contact Rob Nixon at 956-433-1472 or robaroo2000@gmail.com!

More details of contributions and artist details will follow and we sincerely hope to see you at the Surfrider Shindig; Music and Art For Our Oceans, Waves and Beaches!

SPI City Council to Consider Gulf Blvd. Realignment

2012-01-04T07:51:00.000-06:00

UPDATE: SPI APPROVES PHASE I OF GULF BLVD. REALIGNMENT! See below for plan details!

Today marks the first hurdle for the hard work that the South Padre Island Gulf Blvd. Action Group has undertaken since the SPI City Council rejected the AMPCO Paid Parking Plan for Gulf Blvd. back in November. Made up of four "stakeholders" including myself from Surfrider Foundation, Jody Hughes from Property Owners Who Care, Troy Giles, Jason Yetter, Councilwoman Jo Ann Evans, Councilwoman Courtney Hayden and City Manager Joni Clarke, the group was tasked with coming up with a parking and traffic solution for Gulf Blvd. that addresses safer and more efficient parking, pedestrian safety, private property protection and amenities that would benefit South Padre Island aesthetically while addressing the needs and concerns of property owners, residents and visitors. The South Padre Island City Council will be meeting at 2PM today for a workshop where they will be discussing funding for possible capital improvement projects including the first part of the Gulf Blvd. Action Group's multi-year Gulf Blvd. realignment proposal. Following this afternoon's workshop the City Council may take action on this project at their regular City Council Meeting at 5:30PM.

While there are many hurdles to overcome such as whether there will or will not be a charge to park on Gulf Blvd. later on (which has not been discussed at all in length), I do believe the concept as it stands now can create a newly designed Gulf Blvd. that will actually increase public parking opportunities for our visitors while protecting private property and improving the overall look of Gulf Blvd.

Below is the written background and proposal that I wrote on behalf of the group which was submitted to the City Council in their workshop information packet along with some conceptual sketches and diagrams of the proposed project.

Gulf Blvd. Action Group's Segment I Proposal

At its November 16^th,2011 meeting the South Padre Island City Council decided to reject a proposedpaid parking program by AMPCO and appointed a Gulf Blvd. Action Group ofstakeholders, city staff and City Council representatives to address theparking, congestion and safety issues that have been plaguing Gulf Blvd. forthe past several years. With the robustgrowth in population of the Rio Grande Valley and the increasing popularity of SouthPadre Island as a vacation and excursion destination by the local RGV residentsand Texan, National and International visitors, the stresses on Gulf Blvd. willonly increase in the coming years and decades and this action group believesnow is the time to finally address the Gulf Blvd. issue.

Since the November 16^thmeeting the action group has been meeting weekly and will continue to do sountil a comprehensive Gulf Blvd. plan that addresses safer parking, pedestrian safety,private property protection and amenities that would benefit South Padre Islandaesthetically while addressing the needs and concerns of property owners,residents and visitors is completed to be proposed for implementation by theSPI City Council. The action group hasdetermined that the first thing that must be addressed is the infrastructureinadequacies of Gulf Blvd. In order todo this, the group has reviewed the proposed HNTB Gulf Blvd. improvements thatwere rejected by South Padre Island Voters in 2010. While the cost of the HNTB proposal wasextremely high, the Gulf Blvd. Action Group believes that it could be done insegments over the next 4-5 years for a mere fraction of the initial proposedcost by stripping the proposal down while still providing an aesthetically appealingproduct . Our goal is to complete theproject in 4-5 segments at a budget of less than $300,000 per segment at a costunder $1.5 million. By breaking thisproject up into segments over multiple years the group is optimistic the citywill be able to find funds annually to complete each segment and the project willbecome more and more desirable to property owners, residents and visitors ofGulf Blvd. as each section is completed.

Each segment would take advantageof the entire 75’ City Right of Way instead of the 40’ that is currently beingutilized by the City of South Padre Island.In some cases based on constraints posed by sloped driveways, poorlyutilized “dead spaces” and other obstacles that are currently in the right ofway, this would mean a realignment of Gulf Blvd.’s driving lanes. The newly proposed Gulf Blvd. would contain a5’-7’ green/utility buffer (width would depend on area constraints) on the eastand west sides of the road that would preserve and encourage landscaping andexisting utilities such as water meters, power line poles and firehydrants. There would be a 10’ concrete curband gutter sidewalk on the east (where possible) and west side that wouldprovide for a safe place for pedestrians to stroll along Gulf Blvd. while protectingprivate property. A 19’ angled or 10’parallel parking area (depending on area constraints) along the west side thatwould better utilize parking along Gulf Blvd. and parallel parking along theeast side when possible would provide for safe loading and unloading along GulfBlvd. for visitors, residents and property owners and create opportunities forlandscaping at the street ends while eliminating the “free for all’ parkingthat currently exists. Two 10’-13’driving (based on area constraints) laneswill provide for two way traffic flow. Pleasesee “Exhibit A” for a visualizationof alignment variations based on area constraints.
Exhibit A

The resulting vision is ameandering Gulf Blvd. that would provide safe pedestrian walkways, increased parkingand traffic controlling opportunities by eliminating the “freeway “ look ofGulf Blvd. and utilizing bends and narrower lanes to slow traffic while stillbeing able to preserve most current landscaping and provide private propertyprotection.

The first segment of the Gulf Blvd.infrastructure improvements would take place in a seven block area betweenConstellation to the south and Cora Lee to the north which is a high densityvisitor area due to the popularity of the Wanna Wanna Beach Bar with beachgoers. Segment I is an area that willhave to address most of the constraints and challenges we have identifiedincluding realignment, traffic and parking density, and pedestrian safety. The first segment would call for the planningfor the realignment of both the east and west sides of Gulf Blvd. but wouldonly have the west side having the buffer zone, concrete curb and guttersidewalk and angled parking installed along with the restriping of the GulfBlvd. traffic lanes with the east side development of the buffer zone,pedestrian sidewalk and parking to come later.

The Gulf Blvd. Action Group doesunderstand that each segment will present its own sets of constraints andobstacles but believes that the realignments and redevelopment of the GulfBlvd. infrastructure can be done successfully benefiting property owners,residents and visitors alike for decades to come.

Surfrider South Texas' 2011 Year in Review...Punctuated!

2011-12-30T09:55:00.001-06:00

As 2011 wraps up this weekend and we look to 2012, I wanted to do a lengthy "Year in Review" for the Surfrider Foundation south Texas Chapter but the last 10 days has changed that for me.

Yes it has been an extremely successful and positive year for us! The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter was very successful in its efforts in restoring sand dunes on the beaches of the City of South Padre Island by organizing hundreds of volunteers to help plant over 80,000 square feet in new dunes for SPI. We were able to get the majority of a very bad beach fill project removed from Isla Blanca Park. We stepped up our efforts and successfully pressured Cameron County to address its beach trash problems within our county beach parks which resulted in the first ever beach cleanup that had to be cancelled due to no trash and inspired members to go out and form the Isla Blanca All-stars to educate the public on cleaning up their trash. Cameron County's "Cash for Trash" program, which the Surfrider Foundation lobbied for and successfully got implemented on the northern county beaches, continued its outstanding success. The City of South Padre Island finally came to its senses and did not renew its contract with Coastal Solutions and their unproven and potentially damaging shoreline stabilization project that the South Texas Chapter warned against all along. We had another exceptional International Surfing Day Children's Surf Clinic in June and held many beach cleanups including the plastic-centric Raptoberfest cleanup! We even were able to help convince the City of South Padre Island to abandon a very ill-conceived parking plan for Gulf Blvd. and now have a seat at the table for Gulf Blvd.'s possible redesign that will address the concerns of all of the users of the beaches along Gulf Blvd. Finally, we helped support the City's efforts on implementing its plastic bag ordinance that will go into mandatory effect on January 1, 2012 and help reduce litter on SPI's beaches.

But why do we continue to work so hard to accomplish these things and promote our mission of protecting and preserving our oceans, waves and beaches for the enjoyment of ALL people? That question was once again answered for me on December 20th when my second son was born and it was re-enforced yesterday when I spent a few hours on the beach with my oldest son.

We do it for our children and our children's children. It is not about us, maybe a little bit about us, but it is definitely mainly about preserving what we enjoy today for our children to enjoy tomorrow! Funny how a few seagulls and a large group of sand mussels through the eyes of a toddler can punctuate that!

Enjoy the videos, have a great New Year's Eve and we will see y'all in 2012! Thank to all of y'all for your hard work and support!

Ellis Pickett Makes Texas Wesleyan Law Review As Severance v Patterson Expert

2011-12-29T12:26:00.002-06:00

Ellis Pickett

At this year's Surfrider Foundation Texas Chapter Conference in Galveston, Ellis Pickett was listed as "Chapter Godfather of Texas" on our agenda. That is exactly what he is folks. He saw a problem on the Upper Texas Coast in the form of homes that were violating the Texas Open Beaches Act and adversely affecting both public beach access and public safety and he did something about it; he formed the very first Surfrider Foundation Chapter in the great state of Texas to fight for our public beaches and public access!

The legal case that has pitted the Texas Public Beach Users, the Texas General Land Office and The Texas Attorney General against a single holdout property owner from California and her right-wing property rights law firm, The Pacific Legal Foundation (also from California) is Severance v Patterson and its outcome will preserve or forever destroy the Texas Open Beaches Act and the Texas Public's right to access and use the beaches of the Lone Star State.

I have written extensively on this issue on this blog but there is no bigger layman expert on this case than Ellis. He has debated the Pacific Legal Foundation's lead attorney for Carol Severance at a panel discussion held by the Texas Wesleyan School of Law back in March, 2011 and now he has been published in the Texas Wesleyan Law Review regarding the Severance v Patterson case. His article is perfectly concise and explains why himself, myself and many many others within the Surfrider Foundation Texas Chapters Network fight so passionately for our public beaches and more importantly why we are RIGHT!

In his article he states:

That about sums it up right there except one thing that makes a huge difference when talking about the Texas Surfrider Foundation Chapter Network, we are not ignorant beach and surf bums. When an issue comes up that will affect our use and enjoyment of the Texas Public Beaches comes up, we quickly educate ourselves on the issue by talking with the experts and doing hours upon hours of research. Make no assumptions by that first statement above, Ellis Pickett is an expert on this case. Please take some time and read Ellis Pickett's perfect summation of Surfrider Foundation's position on the Severance v Patterson Case and the Texas Open Beaches Act. You can download the PDF here.

Rice Professor's Fight With TCEQ An Illustration of Coastal Denial in Texas

2011-12-27T13:40:00.004-06:00

Rice University's John Anderson's fight with the TCEQ over Academic Censorship
has brought attention to Texas' Denial of Coastal Problems.

There are two facts that Texas coastal communities seem to completely ignore when coming up with coastal development plans. Our barrier islands are eroding at rates that are impossible to keep up with through current practices like beach dredge and fill projects that get more and more expensive and are temporary fixes at best. The other is that the oceans have been rising since the end of the last ice age and will continue to do so until the next one.

Sea level rise (either caused by climate change, subsidence or both) is completely ignored in Texas and is often left out of the erosion equation altogether. Most coastal communities don't even plan for the possibility of those rises increasing over the next 20, 30, 50 or even 100 years. This even goes for areas of our beaches that are completely undeveloped often believing that they can destroy the the natural processes of the barrier island by tearing down dune systems and replacing them with large scale development projects that exacerbate erosion and impede critical sand exchange between the dunes, the beaches and the sandbars therefore weakening its ability to recover after major storm events. Of course afterward or, in the case of Cameron County's Dune Protection Committee developing a preliminary unproven grand Erosion Response Plan that rely on further manipulating the system (after they have destroyed it) to "save" property owners from perceived unconstitutional "takings" from the state and federal government because their property becomes located too close to the water line or actually submerged beneath the ocean. Sorry folks, it's not the government taking your property, it's the Gulf of Mexico. It is unavoidable and inevitable.

I have actually been told by a member of the Cameron County Dune Protection Committee that it is not his concern to plan for future generations; it's about the here and now and not 100 years down the road. While there are good people that sit on Dune Protection Committees all around Texas, there are some like the aforementioned that believe they are on the committee to manipulate the natural and legal systems to benefit the developer and property owner despite the evidence that points to the inevitable "natural disaster". Isn't it ironic that we call hurricanes "natural disasters"? Humans put themselves in these precarious positions on these dynamic and dangerous islands, then blame nature for doing its thing later; they should be termed "man-made disasters"

The fact is that there are more and more officials at the state level of policy and law makers that refuse to hear the science from experts that have been studying these coastal systems for decades. Even the ones that may understand and accept the science seem content to either ignore it in favor of increased tax revenue or at best react to a disaster than to prevent it altogether through proper planning.

The best recent example of this has been the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's (TCEQ) attempt to censor Rice University Professor John Anderson's use of the term "climate change" and "sea-level rise" in its Health of the Galveston Bay Report. The reasoning? Those are terms used in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports which were referenced in the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Cross State Pollution Law which Texas AND the TCEQ sued the EPA over therefore no future Texas environmental reports can use those terms. Sound ridiculous? Welcome to Rick Perry's Texas!

It seems now that after months of pressure from academia and newspaper editorial boards the TCEQ has lamented and now will allow Anderson's work to be published as he original intended. In addition, according to a recent article in the San Antonio Current, Anderson says that Rice University and the University of Texas are working toward collaborative science that will provide essential information for state policy makers to make more informed decisions on coastal development policy and promote sustainability. The trick is to get them to listen. Anderson goes on to say, "as long as we have people in Austin, and a governor who denies global climate change and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality who denies it, then we haven't even made the first step, which is the educational step."

I agree with Anderson that the most essential first step is education. After all we have a Legislature and a Judiciary in Texas that are made up of a fair amount of individuals that have never been to our coasts and are making decisions based on lines on maps that do not move (whereas the beaches and coastlines do) and tax revenue projections that do not show the financial liability that tax payers face when hurricanes and coastal erosion threaten these developments. Is there even a positive cost/benefit ratio in protecting these risky investments through taxpayer insurance subsidies and beach renourishment projects?

Anderson points out, "“If you drive up and down around the Texas coast, I think you can quickly get a feeling for the fact that our coast is changing very rapidly, and it has been changing for a long time. … There's certainly a strong suggestion that current rates of change are unprecedented. Now I think that's not terribly surprising. Those of us who keep up with the literature on sea-level change know that the rate of sea-level rise has accelerated. And, in fact, on the global scale the rate of sea level rise has increased six-fold in historical time, this century. Most of that since the 1940s."

The trick is to get those that make the policy that affects our coastline down there! Hopefully, the Texas collegiate science community led by John Anderson can provide enough information in the near future to get this to happen. The entire San Antonio Current article on Anderson's battle with the TCEQ can be read here.

For further reading please check out John Anderson's book on the Upper Texas Coast entitled The Formation and Future of the Upper Texas Coast.

Mele Kalikimaka from Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter!

2011-12-23T09:20:00.001-06:00

Even Santa knows how to get pitted!

2011 has been an awesome year for the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter and it is all because of our unbelievable supporters, volunteers and activists!

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter would like to wish you and yours a very Happy Hollow Days and Happy New Year! We hope you have a great time with your families and friends and get some great quality surf while your at it!

2012 is going to be great and we will be kicking it off with our 3rd Annual Surfrider Shindig; Music and Art For Our Oceans, Waves and Beaches on February 4th, 2012 at Louie's Backyard! More details coming soon!

In the spirit of the season with a slight Hawaiian Pidgin twist, please enjoy "Da Night Befo' Christmas" below!

Texas A&M: A Drop in Water Salinity May Increase Red Tide Toxins

2011-12-05T08:48:00.001-06:00

Aerial view of Red Tide at South Padre Island during our 2009 Karenia brevis Harmful Algal Bloom

December marks the third month that South Padre Island has been plagued by the 2011 Red Tide of Karenia brevis, a Harmful Algal Bloom that has become increasingly more common along the South Texas Gulf Coast over the years. K. brevis produces brevetoxin, a neurotoxin that kills fish, infects shellfish and can have respiratory effects on humans. In events of increased wave and wind action this toxin can become airborne as an aerosol and increase its harmfulness outside of the water. Other than fish kills, the toxin can cause the deaths of coyotes and domestic dogs that feed on dead fish that have soaked up the toxin in their tissue and can cause neurotoxic shellfish poisoning in humans that eat affected shellfish.

Over the past three months, the concentration of the Red Tide and the aerosols have decreased and increased depending on wind direction and surf conditions but this past weekend, the aerosols were so bad during the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter and City of South Padre Island Dune Restoration Planting that my sinuses and eyes were burning during the entire event. I have never had my eyes burn other than actually being in the water surfing during a Red Tide event. Due to my hay fever, I have actually been so infected by K. brevis in the past that I have been to the point of vomiting. It goes without saying that I do not surf anymore when there is Red Tide in the water here.

I have been told several times by informed marine biologists and other coastal experts that this harmful algal bloom will eventually be "washed out" by either a large rain event or a drop in the water temperature or a combination of both. In fact, right now we are within a cold front that will hopefully wipe out this batch of K. brevis over the next few days (fingers crossed). The truth of the matter is that very little is actually known about the causes of of the K. brevis Harmful Algal Blooms and what causes spikes in brevetoxin and the aerosol. Some have observed spikes in the blooms at river mouths or areas where nitrogen and fertilizer runoff is prevalent but so far this seems to be only anecdotal evidence.

It would appear though, according to an article by Texas A&M University that researchers have produced a paper that shoots a hole in the theory that fresh water or a reduction in salinity level abates the effects of K. brevis. According to graduate student Reagan M Errera and oceanography professor Lisa Campbell, the addition of fresh water and the resulting drop in salinity or the moving from the open ocean to a the typically lower saline environment of coastal waters may actually cause the K. brevis cells to produce more toxin in order to keep their salt and water content in balance more effectively.

The article states:

"'The connection between salinity conditions and an increase in toxin production in K. brevis cells provides the simplest explanation,” says Errera, a recent recipient of a graduate fellowship for excellence in research and teaching at Texas A&M.

In their PNAS report, Errera and Campbell demonstrate that brevetoxin production increases dramatically when cells are shifted from higher concentrations of salt typical of the open ocean to lower salinity typical of coastal waters. In fact, the transition to a lower salinity environment triggered a 14-fold increase in brevetoxin, they say. In addition, the findings indicate a significant increase in an additional compound called brevenal, already being studied to treat cystic fibrosis"

Does this mean that rain makes our Red Tides worse here on South Padre Island or anywhere else? I have no idea but this is definitely a breakthrough in the research of K. brevis and harmful algal blooms.

Recycled Glass As Sand on South Padre Island?

2011-12-02T07:46:00.001-06:00

The University of Texas at Brownsville's Geology department has set up a test plot of recycled glass sand on South Padre Island to see if this would be a viable option for future SPI beach renourishment projects when natural sand is not available. Dr. Elizabeth Heise and students set the test plot of a side by side comparison of natural beach sand and sand created from pulverized glass along with planting bitter panicum in the area to see if it would thrive. It is hard to differentiate between our sand and the glass but upon a closer look you will notice a definite glassy sparkle in the glass sand.

As you can see from the pictures, the plants and even a sand crab seem to be flourishing in the test plot. Notice the heavier glass grains to the left of the crab den.

There was some shelving apparent in the plot but according to Dr. Heise that is the result of UTB not filtering out the ultra fine particles that would have naturally been filtered out by the wave and tidal action on the beach.

Texas Pride Runs Deep In Our Surfrider Foundation Chapters.

2011-12-01T07:24:00.001-06:00

Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chair Rob Nixon leading discussion on
Erosion Response Plans and resilient development in Texas.

On November 19th, 2011 the Texas Chapters of the Surfrider Foundation gathered in Galveston, TX for their 5th state conference where we welcomed our newest chapter, Galveston, into the fold. Over the two day long conference, the group of core Activists from Houston, Galveston, Austin, Corpus Christi and South Padre Island discussed and strategized on Resilient Development of our coastline through local Erosion Response Plans and the importance of pressuring communities to comply with the intent of the plans mandated by the Texas General Land Office, promoting and implementing single-use plastic bag bans within the state starting with Austin, Galveston and Corpus Christi and our position on the newly proposed Federal "Rigs to Reefs" program. We also discussed best practices for volunteer and activist development and leadership.

Surfrider Foundation Texas Coastal Bend Chapter's Neil McQueen discussing
their "Skip the Plastic" Campaign in Corpus Christi

We even found time to head out to the West End and visit the wannabe destroyer of the Texas Open Beaches Act Carol Severance's last remaining home in Galveston. Damaged beyond repair, it is still being rented out for $5,000+ a week? After a careful inspection, the group gave her home a #1 rating! Say what you will about the below photo, but this represents our absolute disdain for outside and domestic developers and real estate brokers coming into Texas and knowingly disregarding common knowledge and of how our coastline works along with warnings of our laws in order to set us up to lose our public beaches so they can turn a quick profit and promote dangerous investment decisions at Tax Payer expense in the name of "property rights".

Of course it was not all work. The Galveston Chapter hosted one heck of a party on that Saturday night at the Riptide Surf Bar with live music, food, drinks and raffles! Everyone got together, got nicely lubed up and just had a great Texas Surf Style Party! I would say that this one was one of, if not the best party of any conferences I have ever attended!

Surfrider Foundation Galveston Chapter's Plastic Wave.

All said and done, I personally had a great time with some amazing coastal Activists who put in thousands of volunteer hours a year sacrificing time with Family and surf sessions to ensure that Texas Beaches are preserved and kept open for everyone to enjoy and pass on to the next generation. These exceptional Texans embody what it means to be a Texan. We were all raised with the ingrained ethic of fiercely defending what you love at all costs and that moral obligation passed down from previous generations of Texans to us runs strong throughout the Texas Surfrider Foundation Chapters!

Activists standing at the end of the Galveston Seawall checking out the retreat of the West End of the island.

SPI Rejects Gulf Blvd. Paid Parking Plan, Turns Issue Over to Stakeholder Group

2011-11-17T07:08:00.001-06:00

Congratulations to all who took the time to email and call the Texas General Land Office and the South Padre Island City Council and who showed up and spoke at the SPI City Council Meeting last night! You made a huge difference and helped the Council Members decide to reject the proposed AMPCO paid parking program for Gulf Blvd.!! Thank You!

The South Padre Island City Council discussed the paid parking program at their November 16th meeting last night and voted unanimously to reject the current proposal from AMPCO. Instead the Mayor and Council voted to hold a public input meeting or meetings that would include pertinent City Staff, Council Representatives, The Texas General Land Office, Surfrider Foundation, Property Owners Who Care, and a few other Representatives from the resident and business community to sit down and start discussing a more comprehensive long term parking system to address the congestion and traffic issues that Gulf Blvd. experiences during peak periods of the tourist season. AMPCO will also be invited to see if they could provide a more reasonable parking solution than their previous proposal.

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter has spent the two weeks leading up to this communicating with the Mayor and we thank him and City Council for being receptive to our concerns and suggestions. We have also been meeting with other groups and concerned citizens in anticipation of the City Council's possible decision to turn the issue over to a group that would include Stakeholders. There is no doubt that we all do not see eye to eye on what our vision for Gulf Blvd. and its possible parking solution might be but we all do agree that the best way to address this issue is to sit down and start discussing this at length and see if there is common ground that we could come to an agreement on which would benefit beach users, residents, visitors and business owners.

So now the real work begins..........

2011/2012 Dune Restoration Season Begins on South Padre Island

2011-11-12T21:30:00.001-06:00

So proud of my son! (Yes he got preferential treatment on pic selection!)

I am very stoked to say that the first Dune Restoration Planting of the 2011/2012 planting season started very strong on South Padre Island this morning! Over 80 volunteers made up of students, families, residents and visitors showed up this morning to help the City of South Padre Island and the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter plant 6,000 Bitter Panicum and Sea Oats to help establish and stabilize new dunes along the beaches of SPI.

Need to work on the plant provider not delivering them in plastic bags..

This is the third year that the City of South Padre Island and Surfrider Foundation have teamed up to accomplish a continuous dune line within the city limits of SPI. The dune line provides natural protection from storms for the city's infrastructure, provides a sand "savings account" to help the beach recover after such storms and provides added habitat. The city purchases the plants and Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter provides the volunteers.

Last year we were able to plant over 44,000 plants and create approximately 80,000 square feet of new dunes. The picture below shows a section that we planted last year. In spite of the drought, it is doing really well as are the other we planted last year.

A portion of last year's plants thriving in spite of our ongoing drought!

This year the SPI Coastal Resources Department has decided to move forward with a procedure we experimented with last season. We started using cordless drills with long auger bits to quickly drill the holes the plants would go in. This process has taken the time to plant 6,000-8,000 plants from 3 hours down to 1 1/2 hours.

The City and Surfrider Foundation will continue to hold the Dune Restoration Plantings throughout the Winter and into the Spring!

SPI Parking Issue Debate Continues on Local News.

2011-11-07T07:52:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, November 6th, KGBT Channel 4 news aired a story on the current plan by the City of South Padre Island, Texas to implement a paid parking program by charging an $8 Beach User Fee for all of its public beach parking spots along Gulf Blvd.

In the report reporter Rafael Carranza states that the city told him, that any money collected from this program would go back to the community itself. That is interesting since at the November 2nd City Council meeting (click on agenda item #9 to go to video on this issue) it was pretty much the general consensus of the City Council, the Mayor and the City Attorney that this is probably not going to be the case since they felt, like the Surfrider Foundation, that they would barely meet the $425,000 threshold that would go entirely to the parking contractor AMPCO. In fact, Mayor Bob Pinkerton told the Surfrider Foundation that he considered money going into the beach maintenance fund was a secondary issue. Wow. Complying with state law on charging Beach User Fees is secondary? City Attorney Paul Cunningham also expressed his opinion that there was no way for every spot to generate the $800 each that they would need to to meet the minimum threshold.

Once again, the Surfrider Foundation can not accept a program that does not abide by state law and will not contribute the vast majority of revenue back to the public beach and its maintenance.

Once again, the Surfrider Foundation had requested that the city take some time and hold a public workshop on this issue and program so that we, along with AMPCO, the City of South Padre Island and the Texas General Land Office could work through the issue of the Beach User Fee revenue going back to the Beach Maintenance fund but the city decided to not entertain that idea, which AMPCO was receptive to, and instead decided to move forward with the plan and negotiations with any further public input.

For more on this ongoing issue please click on the stories below.

Surfrider South Texas: Gulf Blvd. Paid Parking Fees Don't Add Up

South Padre Island Moves Forward With Controversial Beach Parking Plan

Please make plans to show up at the November 16th South Padre Island City Council meeting at 5:30 and express your concerns to the SPI City Council on this issue!

South Padre Island Moves Forward With Controversial Beach Parking Plan.

2011-11-03T08:36:00.001-05:00

I am disappointed to report that last night, the South Padre Island City Council decided to move into negotiations with AMPCO on implementing a paid parking program along Gulf Blvd. The City was satisfied with the concessions made by AMPCO to try and insure that the City would not have to invest very little if anything into the program itself by removing the $99,000 penalty for the unilateral termination of the contract by AMPCO if the program does not produce the revenue it projects or other aspects such as maintaining the city's current low crime rate. It also agreed to actually take over collection of the parking citations and pay the City the $12 fee AMPCO was supposed to get for each citation.

If it hadn't been for the Surfrider Foundation bringing up the issue of the SPI Beach Maintenance Fund and in turn the public beach not benefiting from the Beach User Fees (BUFs) as is required by Texas Law during the meeting, the issue would have not even come up. Despite our best efforts to address this issue and even the City Attorney expressing his opinion that he didn't think the 527 PUBLIC BEACH PARKING spaces could generate the $800 per spot to make the minimum revenue thresholds to even see a profit being made, the City Council brushed the issue aside. Mayor Bob Pinkerton stated that the primary reason for the program was to "control" parking on Gulf Blvd. and money going into the Beach Maintenance Fund was secondary. Apparently, in his opinion and the rest of the City Council who unanimously voted to move forward with negotiations, state law does not affect the City of South Padre Island . Councilwoman Bagley was absent from the meeting. They claim that the Texas General land Office had stated in previous meeting that 100% of the BUFs could be used to pay a parking contractor. While this is correct, in recent conversations with the Texas General Land Office, the Surfrider Foundation has been told that this is not the case and an as yet to be determined percentage of those fees must go into the Beach Maintenance Fund. To be clear, the City Council is completely at ease charging the public to park near the beach and not have any of that public money go back to maintain that public beach!

In addition, the Mayor expressed his opinion that $8 was pretty much a free pass when the Surfrider Foundation asked the Council and AMPCO to consider annual passes for Gulf Blvd for regular beach users and area residents.

In AMPCO's defense, they did take the time to sit down and meet with the Surfrider Foundation and address our concerns including the annual pass issue. We left the meeting in agreement that a workshop sponsored by the City on this proposal would be beneficial to all involved and allow us to work out our differences. When Surfrider Foundation suggested this during the meeting, it was not even acknowledged by the Council.

What was really surprising is the complete lack of knowledge that the City Council has in regard to what Cameron County is actually doing with their Beach User Fees and inside their parks and on their beaches. Twice last night it was said that the County is charging an $8 daily fee to enter their parks and beaches. That is not correct. They are charging $4. When Surfrider Foundation corrected them on this, I was told by a former City Council member sitting next to me that the County is planning on raising their daily fees. That is absolutely not correct and shows the unwillingness of City Council Members to communicate with Cameron County officials on beach related issues. Yes. Cameron County has raised the ceiling on what they can charge to enter their parks but Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos has frozen the daily fees at $4 and according to Cameron County Parks Director Javier Mendez he has no intention of raising them.

While last night's meeting was disappointing there are still several steps that the City of South Padre Island must go through in order to get this plan approved and installed by their desired time of Spring Break 2012. Among them is having to amend their Dune Protection and Public Beach Access Plan which must be approved by the GLO and they will have to sit down with Cameron County and work out a fee schedule through an inter-local agreement. It looks like the Surfrider Foundation will be heading to the County and State levels next to try and defeat this ridiculous and illegal plan.

Surfrider South Texas: Gulf Blvd. Paid Parking Fees Don't Add Up

2011-11-02T08:36:00.000-05:00

Below is the official Surfrider Foundation South Texas Statement submitted to South Padre Island City Council on the proposed paid parking program on Gulf Blvd. that they will be considering at their November 2, 2011 regular meeting.

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter has spent some time going over the proposal for the charging of Beach User Fees for use of the estimated 527Public Beach Parking spots on Gulf Blvd and we cannot see how this program hasany real chance of preserving or enhancing public beach access or recoveringthe cost of maintaining provided beach related services in this area which isthe purpose of such fees under Texas Administrative Code Title 31, Part 1, Rule15.8. In fact, we believe that nearly, if not all of the revenue will end upgoing to AMPCO entirely defeating the requirements of implementing such fees.

After looking at the presentation in the City Council Informational Packet for theNovember 2, 2011 City Council Meeting and doing some math it seems improbablethat the minimum thresholds will be met. Charging $8 a day per spot would require 100 or more days of capacityparking in this area just to meet the first year’s minimum of $425,000 (everyday from Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day Weekend) which all goes to AMPCOwith none going into the Beach Maintenance Fund. In the event that the revenue does exceed$425,000 over the entire year then the city would only be able to retain 40% ofthose revenues? 40% of what is the bigquestion. What about inclement conditionsthat affect revenue collection such as rain on a big weekend, tropical stormsor hurricanes or even a prolonged Red Tide like we are experiencing now andhave experienced several times over the last 10 years? There are no revenueestimates from the city or from AMPCO and no apparent contingency in the eventof lost days of revenue collection.

In addition, AMPCO is proposing to charge double what Cameron County currentlycharges for their daily Beach User Fees while the city only has a smallfraction of the amenities that the County Beach Parks provide their beach goerssuch as bathrooms and showers, benches, covered and communal areas. Some Members of the City Council have alsobeen pretty clear in the past that they have no intention of adding any futureamenities due to the fear of the public loitering and hanging out at beach accessesthat too much resemble parks. There can be an argument made that theavailability of the Beach Patrol, EMS and other First Responders outweigh thelack of other amenities but it seems pretty uncertain to us that this programwill provide very little if any subsidy to these services anyway, not tomention the improvement and maintaining of the parking spaces themselves, dunewalkovers, current amenities or beach maintenance.

In spite of all of this, the real shortfall of this proposal and the very apparentroadblock to any money ever seeing its way into the Beach Maintenance Fund isthe requirement that the city pay AMPCO a $12 fee on all parkingcitations. It appears that the city mustpay this fee even if they have not collected the fine from the individual thatwas given the citation. It is also ourunderstanding that all parking tickets will also become a civil violation andnot a criminal one which appears to reduce the percentage of collected finesand increases the occurrence of unpaid tickets. Very recently, Harlingen has come out and said that they have 20,000outstanding red light tickets due to the lack of any real punishment for notpaying fines. With the vast majority ofpeople that come to South Padre Island being from out of the immediate area anda good percentage being from outside of the United States, how is the Citygoing to make sure that these fines are paid? Where does the money come from to cover the deficit in the money thatthe city will owe AMPCO regardless of whether these fines are paid?

For the uncertainties and concerns mentioned above, the Surfrider Foundations wouldlike to humbly request that the South Padre Island City Council not accept thiscurrent proposal. It is only financiallybeneficial to AMPCO and seems to only raise more questions and concerns inregard to the parking situation on Gulf Blvd. while providing no realmeasurable benefit to South Padre Island’s beaches. It definitely does not seem to meet therequirements of implementing Beach User Fees along Gulf Blvd. and it seems toput the city at a financial risk in enforcing the tickets and collecting thefines.

Sincerely,
Rob Nixon
Chairman
Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter

Sandy Feet's SPI Sandcastle Trail: A City Wide Sculpture Garden

2011-10-28T15:23:00.000-05:00

There is a great new attraction on South Padre Island that is unique, fun, interesting and invites exploration. Unfortunately, I doubt very few people actually know about it yet. It is Lucinda "Sandy Feet" Weirenga's Sandcastle Trail and it is outstandingly cool! What it comes down to is it is a city wide sculpture garden that is always being added to and will continue to evolve and change. In fact Lucinda has recruited some of the very sculptors that came down for this year's Sandcastle Days to help get it going! It features activities that are available on the island as well as South Padre island icons and great environmental themes!

I followed it this morning in order of the list of places on the website but realized halfway through that it could be a perfect bike ride trail that would take you all over the island if followed in the right pattern. Right now the way it is listed it will take you from one end of the island to the other and back again but if planned out correctly it could be a morning or afternoon of exploration and fun on a bike!

I also took the time to list all of the current locations on FourSquare so that they are easily searchable, you can play along and check in at each spot and help promote it. All you need to do is search for "SPI Sandcastle Trail" and it should come up with each location.

Below are the sculptures that currently exist on the trail in the order that would best fit a bike ride loop around South Padre Island starting at the South Padre Island Visitors Center along with their Foursquare listings.

SPI Visitors Center at 600 Padre Blvd. The largest of the sculptures!
Listed as SPI Sandcastle Trail #9 & #10- SPI Visitors Center

Amazing Walter's Castle. The master in action here!
Listed as SPI Sandcastle Trail #1- Amazing Walter's Castle

Dennis' Lair promoting the very important Unlitter Campaign!
Listed as SPI Sancastle Trail #5- Dennis' Lair

Water Tower Park.
Listed as SPI Sandcastle Trail #12- Water Tower Park

Ken Dunmum's Corner.
Listed as SPI Sandcastle Trail #7- Ken Dunkum's Corner

Bagley Home at The Shores. The most adventurous find by far, this one will take some searching.
Listed as SPI Sandcastle Trail #2-Bagley House @ The Shores

Turtle Lady Park.
Listed as SPI Sandcastle Trail #11- Turtle Lady Park

Goodhope Circle.
Listed as SPI Sandcastle Trail #6- Goodhope Circle

Sandy Feet's Sandbox Inn. Stop on in and say thanks to the creator!
Listed as SPI Sandcastle Trail #8 @SandyFeet's Sandbox Inn

Butterfly Garden.
Listed as SPI Sandcastle Trail #4- Butterfly Garden

Bougainvillea Circle. My personal favorite!
Listed as SPI Sandcastle Trail #3-Bougainvillea Circle

Now get out there and go find these amazing works of art and keep up with the evolution of the Sandcastle Trail at www.sandcastletrail.com!!

Rice University to Galveston: Abandon West End

2011-10-27T07:58:00.001-05:00

Galveston Island after Hurricane Ike, September 13th, 2008

Rice University has published a 198 page "Atlas for Sustainable Strategies for Galveston Island" in an effort to raise awareness of Galveston's grim future and encourage a shift from beach front development to a more sustainable coastal management plan. According to a Houston Chronicle article it calls for the abandonment of the West End, the adoption of a shelved geohazard map that was developed for Galveston back in 2007 and the planting of mangrove trees to protect the island.

In my opinion, this publication could not have come at a better time for Galveston Island as it is in the process of ratifying and approving its Erosion Response Plan (ERP) to be submitted to the Texas General Land Office. The original ERP called for larger building setbacks from the water to be adopted by Galveston to promote more resilient development and to reduce public funds expenditures on private property as per the GLO guidelines. Unfortunately, the powerful West Galveston Island Property Owners Association is pushing for a reduced building setback line to promote more development closer to the water. Ironically enough, the head of the Property Owners Association, Jerry Mohn, is also the President of the Texas Chapter of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the contradictory interests that he represents. Of course, the ASBPA is more of a coastal engineering firm club than a beach preservation outfit.

In the Houston Chronicle article, the Galveston Island Mayor Joe Jaworski is quoted as saying, "Given sea rise and erosion issues, I am aware there will always be a tension between development and open space preservation on Galveston's west end. I hope that future development is always done in the smartest, most sustainable way." If that is the case then I would expect him to be pushing for the increased building setbacks in the original Galveston ERP and adopting some, if not all of the Rice University recommendations. However, he did sit on the City Council that scrapped the original ERP and caved to the West Galveston Island Property Owners Association demands to go back to the 25' building setback.

What ends up happening in Galveston , as with most coastal issues in Texas, will have profound impacts elsewhere and could further embolden other areas such as Cameron County to keep fighting for and promoting a reduction in building setbacks in their ERPs (both Cameron County and Galveston island ERPs were written by the same consultant) and encourage riskier and riskier development along our barrier islands which will end up being bailed out by state and federal taxpayers and put our public beaches in danger with suits such as the Severance v Patterson Case. What Galveston and Cameron County are pushing for is the complete opposite intention of what the Erosion Response Plans were to be.

Oh how quickly we conveniently forget storms like Hurricane Ike in the pursuit of short term economic benefits.

Sandcastle Days 2011: Art for Coastal Conservation

2011-10-24T15:43:00.000-05:00

Sandy Feet's Sandcastle Days creation "Waking Giant"

This past weekend saw great times to be had by thousands of people on South Padre Island as the Red Tide abated and the 24th Annual Sandcastle Days kicked off! Sandcastle Days, which was founded by Lucinda "Sandy Feet" Wierenga, "Amazing" Walter McDonald and the Sons of the Beach, is a sand sculpture showcase event that has been dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of conserving the great natural resource that is our Texas Coast.

"Amazing" Walter's ultimate sandcastle

Every year, professional sand sculptors are brought in to create incredible works of art made completely out of sand. Like the beach that this sand comes from, these masterpieces are susceptible to the wind and tides from the Gulf of Mexico and eventually will be consumed by the very canvas that created them. It is a perfect metaphor for man's futile attempt to manipulate the barrier island environment in which we love, live, work and play in.

It was again Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter's privilege to be featured alongside our local sea turtle hospital and research center Sea Turtle, Inc. in this year's event as one of the beneficiary environmental non-profits. Other non-profits that were there were the Sons of the Beach's Unlitter Campaign that sponsored the trash art contest and the Dolphin Research and Sealife Nature Center We were given the opportunity to not only engage the public in our efforts to preserve and protect our oceans, waves and beaches for the enjoyment of ALL people but we also given beverage concessions on the beach where a portion of the proceeds and all of the tips of the sales of sodas and beer would go back to Surfrider South Texas and Sea Turtle, Inc. Billed as the Non-profit Bartender Wars both organizations came out on top at the end of the weekend financially and educationally.

Sandcastle Days featured environmental non-profits

I personally had a great time hanging out with my Family, friends and fellow activists meeting some really awesome people that are just as passionate as I am about protecting and preserving our public beaches and coastal environment.

Surfrider South Texas Member Don York's sculpture that won
the Sons of the Beach Unlitter Trash Art Contest!

A huge thanks goes out to Ann Smith, Mary K. Hancock and Ashley Quinn for inviting us back this year and taking very good care of us and Sea Turtle, Inc.!

My son "Turtle" checking out his bro at Sea Turtle, Inc.'s Tent.
This turtle will be released this Friday, October, 28th!

Of course our successful weekend would not have been possible without Surfrider South Texas' awesome Volunteer Coordinator Leah Thrash and her army of volunteers that helped man the information and the beverage tents!

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter can not wait until next year!!

Texas Musician & Beach Spokesman Johnny Dee Passes Away

2011-10-20T13:57:00.000-05:00

I was sad to learn this afternoon that Keith Landers known by all as Johnny Dee of Johnny Dee and the Rocket 88's passed away Monday in Austin. The man and his band provided some really great memories during my childhood growing up in Harlingen, Texas and attending Rio Fest every year. We never missed any of their fun outrageous 50's themed rock shows. What I remember the most about him aside from his great shows is the fact that he was obsessed with my father being an FBI agent at the time and couldn't get enough of talking with him when he would come to town. My Father also really loved that band as well.

Johnny Dee and the Rocket 88's also did one of, if not the only Don't Mess With Texas television advertisements that I can remember that specifically concentrating on not trashing our Texas Beaches. To give you an idea of how effective this ad was, I used to go around singing this song as a kid. It will be stuck in my head again for the rest of the weekend!

You will be missed Johnny Dee!

Shored Up: A Documentary That Must Be Completed

2011-10-19T08:26:00.001-05:00

I have been following the status of a documentary film being made by filmmaker Ben Kalina called Shored Up for a while now and constantly ask when is this movie going to be completed. I believe that films like this should be made and readily available to anyone who lives or is thinking about living on the United States' Barrier Islands along the East and Gulf Coasts.

What is Shored Up? According to Kalina it is a documentary that explores why we have chosen to build right up to a tumultuous sea on the most dynamic and vulnerable stretches of land to storms, tides and winds and the challenges we face in making that choice. It also explores the debate between property owners, developers, recreational users, scientists and environmentalists that rages in all coastal towns and cities of how best to deal with these challenges.

In my opinion, it is a film that needs to be completed and then needs to be shown in every single one of these communities from South Padre Island, Texas to Long Beach Island, New Jersey and now you can help make this happen by aiding Ben and crew to finance the last 25% of the project on Kickstarter. I personally have donated to the project and hope it makes its $15,000 goal by November 11, 2011 so the movie can be released in time for the 2012 Hurricane Season.

Please view Ben Kalina's Kickstarter interview and the Shored Up movie trailer below and if you also feel that the documentary should be completed you can also donate to the project by clicking here. You will find that you very much identify with the community that is being discussed in the trailer.

Red Tide Hits South Padre Island

2011-10-16T12:27:00.000-05:00

The little red menace is back.

As reported by KGBT Channel 4 News yesterday Red Tide (Karinia Brevis) has come to the beaches of South Padre Island at perhaps the worst time of the year. With the fall bait fish migration in full effect drawing in the larger predatory fish such as Spanish Mackerel, Tarpon, Red Drum and Sharks closer to the beaches we might be looking at a damaging fish kill along our shores. The Red Tide which has been affecting the Coastal Bend area of Texas now for the past few weeks looks like it has been pushed down here by the recent northern winds from the year's first few fronts.

As far as human impact there are reports of minor to moderate aerosol effects felt by beach goers which may increase with the anticipated swell that is supposed to hit over the next few days with the coming of a new frontal system.

Magic Seaweed Forecast for South Padre Island as of 10/16/2011

Below is the latest update from the South Padre Island Coastal Resources Manager I received this morning.

As of this morning there are fish washing up on the northern portion of the City. Larger fish have washed up at the Shores and there are smaller fish from that area to approximately the Palms café section of the beach. The aerosol effects are not very strong as of yet but they can be felt. There are large bait balls being effected along the first sand bar which are bringing larger fish to feed unfortunately this will probably cause larger to fish to begin to wash ashore in the near future. The upper Texas coast has been dealing with this situation for approximately 4-6 weeks my guess is the Northern winds we have been receiving have pushed blooms in our direction and they will continue to move south and effect the entire beach fairly soon. Cell counts taken this morning from the surf had approximately 1,100 cells/ml.

More updates will follow as they are recieved.

Cash For Trash: Final Summer 2011 Report

2011-10-12T13:07:00.001-05:00

Summer is over and so is this year's operation of Cameron County's "Cash for Trash" program at County Beach Accesses #5 and #6 on South Padre Island, TX. The program is continuing to put up substantial numbers as far as keeping litter off of the vehicle accessible beaches north of the City of South Padre Island! The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter could not have come close to anticipating these numbers or the success it has enjoyed since suggesting and pushing the implementation of the program to Cameron County Parks and Recreation and the Texas General Land Office in 2010.

Once again, the idea is simple. Every vehicle is charged a $4 deposit and given a trash bag when entering at accesses 5 or 6. If they bring back a full bag of trash they get the $4 refunded. If not then that money goes into Cameron County's Beach Maintenance Fund. So far the program has completely paid for itself.

The first report of the 2011 was published at the end of June and can be seen here.

The numbers summary for July- September is below:

Since July 1st, 2011:

97.74 tons of trash have been collected and kept of the beaches. (Numbers based on Waste Management Return Invoices)
52,731 deposits taken
33,762 deposits refunded
64% of bags returned for deposit back.
$75,812 in gross revenue generated from the program. (not adjusted for labor costs)

Since the implementation of the "Cash for Trash" program in August of 2010, approximately 200 tons of trash have been kept off the northern beaches of Cameron County!

This along with Surfrider South Texas' efforts to keep pressure on Cameron County Parks and Recreation in keeping Isla Blanca clean with its media blitz and Morning After Beach Cleanup and the Isla Blanca All-Stars inspirational efforts in educating the beach goers during the weekends this past summer has seen real gains in the overall improved appearance and cleanliness of our beaches. Yes there are still problems but Cameron County is definitely on the move in the right direction in preserving and protecting the great natural and economic resource that is their beaches!

Thank you Cameron County!

Erosion in Action: Ocean takes down Cornwall Cliff

2011-10-11T08:19:00.000-05:00

Here is very impressive video of a cliff collapse due to wave and wind action in North Cornwall, England.

In an interview with The Telegraph Geologist Pete Hobbs of the British Geological Survey, "That collapse is a pretty big event geologically - the biggest one I've come across was in 1999 at Beachy Head which was 200,000 tonnes."

Local Busnisses Help Make SPI Bag Ban Transition

2011-10-06T13:34:00.001-05:00

The Plastic Bag Ban Ordinance that South Padre Island passed on January 5th of 2011 which has been subject to voluntary compliance thus far goes into its mandatory compliance implementation on January 1st, 2012!

To see if the plastic bag ordinance applies to your business and what the requirements are click here.

The South Padre Island Chamber of Commerce which supported the bag ban from the beginning, has a Go Green! business recognition program and provides numerous recycling services for local businesses has released a list of members that can help businesses come into compliance by supplying them with the accepted bags under the ordinance. They are listed below.

Duro Bag Mfg.
Contact: Fermin Mansilla
3401 David Shor
Brownsville, TX 78523
tel: 956.831.4209

Toucan Graphics
Contact: Stan Hulse or Adrian Hulse
104 W. Bahama St., Ste. A
South Padre Island, TX 78597
tel: 956.761.1765

Kennedy Bag Impressions, Inc.
Contact: Fred Kennedy
7838 E. FM 802
Brownsville, TX
tel: 956.350.9172

For more information you can contact the SPI Chamber of Commerce at 956-761-4412 or email them at info@spichamber.com!

Local SPI Surfer Lands a Nice Bull Shark!

2011-10-04T07:44:00.000-05:00

Photo from Texas Parks & Wildlife's Facebook Page

Local South Padre Island surfer David Daigle landed and released this very nice Bull Shark at Isla Blanca Park last Friday! There has been a lot of feeding activity just off of the beaches the past couple of weeks. Check out this video of some very large fish and birds feeding on some mullet taken during our Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter's Raptoberfest Plastics Beach Cleanup on Saturday taken by John Hancock!

SPI Raptober Kicks Off Removing 300lbs. of Plastic!

2011-10-03T08:16:00.000-05:00

Saturday October 1, 2011 marked the beginning of Raptober and Raptoberfest, a month long awareness campaign about plastic litter in our oceans based on the Surfrider Foundations Rise Above Plastics Campaign (The RAP in Raptober). Plastic is the number 1 marine litter in the world's oceans. To kick off Raptober, 24 locations around the United States, including South Padre Island, Texas held the event One Foot At A Time Plastic Beach Cleanup (OFAAT).

The 1st square foot of plastic taken off of Andy Bowie Park's Beach

The idea behind OFAAT was simple, remove 1,000 sq. ft. of plastic off of our beaches. Volunteers were asked to collect plastic off the beach then take that plastic and, using one of five templates provided, create a piece of plastic trash art to be submitted for prizes and recognition! South Padre Island's event was held at Andy Bowie Park and was sponsored by the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter, Keep SPI Beautiful, the Padre Island Brewing Company and Clif Bar.

New Plastic Boardshorts for next summer season

Braving thunderstorms, 30 volunteers showed up at Andy Bowie Park and removed over 300 lbs. of plastic from the beach there. With that, they were able to create 40 pieces of beach trash art! Once the art was created, it was then sorted into trash and recyclables of which about 50% was recyclable!

Synthetic Foot

Thanks to all who came out and made the effort to raise awareness about plastic litter and help make Andy Bowie Park much cleaner. Special thanks goes out to Harlingen's Shotokan Karate School who brought out their students to participate in the event, Don York who brought out discarded plastic beach toys he has been collecting off our beaches to spice up some of the art (and keep my son entertained), Shane and Stephanie Wilson who made six different trips out to the beach to collect some amazing finds and Lauren Lauphlin who helped promote the event with her great article in the Port Isabel/South Padre Island Press!

"Plastic Unfantastic" Surfboard

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter would also like to thank Mark Haggenmiller at the Padre Island Brewing Company who provided gift certificates for free pints of beer for all of those that were 21 and over that participated and Clif Bar who provided free bars for the under 21 participants!

2 pics of same piece: Someone actually took the time to contain their cigarette butts but then left the container behind?

More Raptober awareness will be on its way soon! For now, here are 10 ways you can reduce your plastic footprint! In addition if you join Surfrider Foundation in the month of Raptober, you could get a very cool limited edition t-shirt or a Raptoberfest Stien! Don't forget to check South Texas Chapter as your home chapter!

Unfortunately Sea Turtles are becoming made up of more and more plastic.

Our overachiever and hero of the day, Shane Wilson with the biggest piece of plastic collected!

Anyone missing any beach toys?

Plastic sun.

A "Crabbing" break! No sand crabs were harmed in the making of this pic!

U.S. 5th Circuit Fails To Declare Open Beaches Challenge Moot

2011-09-29T07:33:00.000-05:00

A little reminder to the Texas Supreme Court, Texas voted Public Beach Right into our Constitution 3-1!

It would have been nice if on Wednesday the United States 5th Circuit Court of Appeals would have announced that the long running Severance v. Patterson Texas Open Beaches Act Challenge was moot and the State's Public Beach Easement was completely restored but alas, that would have made too much sense. Instead the Federal Apellatte Court issued an unpublished two paragraph opinion declared that Carol Severance, a San Diego Divorce Attorney and Real Estate Agent, still has standing in Texas because the, "briefing persuades us that under Texas law, Carol Severance remains exposed to potential liability for alleged violations of the Texas Open Beaches Act."

So for now, The Texas Supreme Court's ruling still stands and the public beaches in Galveston remain drastically compromised lying only between the mean high and mean low tide lines with the danger of that ruling being expanding to the entire Texas Court. The U.S. 5th Circuits opinion also means that the Texas Supreme Court must now decide if it will overrule it's decision based on the arguments that were heard by The Texas General Land Office at the April 19th, 2011 rehearing of the case.

So we wait for the Texas Supreme Court to do the right thing while Ms. Severance sits back in California with the $2 million profit she raked in thanks to the great enabler, FEMA anxiously awaiting to be crowned "Destroyer of the Texas Open Beaches Act".

To date the original ruling of the Texas Supreme Court Opinion has spurned numerous lawsuits and resulted in the cancellation of a much needed $40 million beach fill project that would have repaired the beaches in Galveston and put a much needed buffer between the Gulf of Mexico and many homes after Hurricane Ike. Way to go Pacific Legal Foundation!!

More from the Houston Chronicle here.

125 Activists Gather With Patagonia in California's Sierras

2011-09-20T14:10:00.001-05:00

Fallen Leaf Lake, California

This past week Patagonia brought 125 Environmental Activists and Employees together along with a cadre of speakers and presenters for its Tools For Grassroots Activists Conference at the Stanford Sierra Camp on Fallen Leaf Lake in California. If you thought Patagonia only sold clothes and gear then you need to check out their The Cleanest Line blog and see how they walk the walk in supporting environmental issues. Thanks to the generosity of the Surfrider Foundation, I was lucky to be among this group of incredibly diverse and very motivated people that are all doing their part in the good work of protecting our environment, preserving and expanding our public lands, improving our watersheds and protecting endangered species. This along with the backdrop of Falling Leaf Lake made for an incredible environment that seemed less like being at a conference and more like being at Summer Camp.

The most amazing part of the 4 day program was that the material covered and that the information that was discriminated was all pertinent to each organization represented no matter what they were working on. Subjects included presentations and workshops on campaign planning, strategy versus tactics, environmental economic development, working with businesses, lobbying, messaging and marketing, web strategy and a very in-depth instruction on how Google Tools can help in achieving our goals and running our non-profits. Almost all of these workshops and lectures were centered around real world campaign case studies or the presenter would find immediate ways for participants to plug in their issues in as examples. It was remarkable!

These sessions were not all of course. The conference started off with a key note address by Annie Leonard who started the Story of Stuff Project which really set the tone for the days that followed. Outside of the workshops there were movies at night from Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff Project and from the Wild &Scenic Film Festival.

In between everything their were moments of celebration as well with the announcement of two obsolete dam removals on the Elwha and White Salmon Rivers in Washington starting that day by the organizations that helped make it happen- American Rivers among them. The removal of the dams will restore those rivers back to their natural flows and restore over 70 miles of salmon habitat on the Elwha alone.

As if this wasn't more than enough to take in their was the Stanford Sierra Camp and the Fallen Leaf Lake itself. During our breaks, both official and unofficial, we had hiking, various different types of paddling options on the lake which included everything from kayaking to SUPing and sailing on the lake. There was also swimming but that lasted about 6 1/2 minutes for me as that water was pretty damned cold! Night time was where all the real networking was done, as with any other conference, at the bar and on decks overlooking the lake. I shared many beers, stories and subsequent ideas with some awesome people from places all over the United States and the Globe including France, Japan and Brazil.

The entire week was an exceptional experience and I am looking forward to taking what I learned and applying it to the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter so that we can become a stronger more effective chapter. I am alos looking forward to sharing it with the rest of the Texas Surfrider Chapters!

A huge thanks goes out to the Patagonia crew and the instructors for putting this thing on and a very humble thank you goes out to the Surfrider Foundation for giving me the opportunity to attend!

I will leave y'all with a scene of our last night's activity, a local square dance. Yes. A square dance!

Queen Isabella Causeway Collapse: A Memoir

2011-09-12T16:32:00.001-05:00

It is hard to believe that it has been 10 years since the night the South Padre Island's Queen Isabella Causeway collapsed. For some reason I have been thinking a lot about that night and the months afterward recently. It was a unique time to be living on South Padre Island and a time when an entire community came together to help each other out. Here are my memories and my tribute. Some sad, some funny but all very special.

September, 2001was a great time to be living on South Padre Island. We were all in our 20s and we really had no more worries than which bar we were going to meet up at and where we would go after they closed. In the early morning hours of September 15th, 2001 we found ourselves on one of my best friend's sailboat named "High Times" in the Sea Ranch Marina drinking beers. The name of the boat really could have been the title for that summer; spending our days surfing and sailing and our night drinking. Of course we were very aware and very angry of the events of 9/11 and that, of course was the center of most of our conversation but still that was far away from us. After all, we were on an island in South Texas. We were in paradise!

Sometime around 3:00AM we began to get calls on the radio and on phones that the Queen Isabella Causeway had collapsed. At first we brushed it off as a bad island rumor but the reports kept coming and we eventually realized that it was the real thing. We had gotten word that a friend of our was getting his boat ready to head out to the causeway and offer help to the rescue and recovery effort. We all packed up and headed out with him to help, very nervous and not knowing what to expect when we got there. When we came up on the bridge, lights were beamed up to the gap in the top span with water gushing from a ruptured water pipe, there were barges adrift and there were cars in the water.

There were two things that I saw that I will never forget. There was a windshield wedged onto one of the pilings about 60 feet up with a crumpled car sitting on the pier below and a red pick-up truck floating with it's back window and tailgate out of the water. On that back window was a fireman's hat sticker and I knew that that was the Port Isabel Fire Chief Bob Harris' truck. We had said goodbye to Bob a few hours earlier as we left Louie's Backyard where he moonlighted as a doorman to the locals bar. The event had just become very real even though now it seems like a bad dream. Our boat was turned away by the Coast Guard and we begrudgingly headed back to the docks and had no choice but to head home in shock.

It turned out that a barge had struck the causeway causing a supporting pier to shift and an eighty foot section of road at the top collapsed into the water cutting power and knocking out the lights. Without the lights and the location of the collapse it was almost impossible for a driver to see the gap before it was too late.

We would later find out that eight people had died and three had survived. Among the lost were Bob Harris, Hector Martinez, local surf legend "Harpoon" Barry Welch and his new wife Chealsa who left behind their new son William. I knew them and still feel the loss every time I enter Louie's or a big swell hits Dolphin Cove. I can still see Bob smiling and waiving as I entered the door at Louie's and I can hear Hector screaming my name as I entered the bar. I can also still see 'Poon standing up from his Suburban screaming and honking his horn when a big set started to show on the horizon in the Brazos Santiago Pass. Chealsa was so kind and she was so excited to be a mother.

The Memorial: The center contains the names of the deceased and the benches contain the names of the survivors

The next morning, after not sleeping and being generally nervous and depressed, we all went and camped out in front of the Blue Marlin, our local grocery store, to get water and food because we were not sure what to really expect as far as when these things would be available again. I remember a television news reporter coming up to our group sitting there in the parking lot and asking for our reaction. This friend of mine immediately told her to go away because we didn't want to talk to anyone about our lost friends. She didn't mean it to be mean, it was just how she felt and, to tell you the truth, that is how we all felt at that moment.

The following days, weeks and months were really a testament to the quality of individuals that lived on SPI at the time. The island was cut off and there was no way for people to move back and forth, for vending trucks to get to grocery stores or restaurants or ambulances to get on or off the island. Without any prompting local charter outfits like Captain Murphy's, American Diving, the Danny B and more immediately started a ferry service to help people and supplies get back and forth between the mainland and the island. Actually anyone with a boat stepped up and offered it to people in need of getting to work or visitors who had to get back home. They all did it without asking for a dime in return.

In the beginning, the locally run "ferries" also provided entertainment for some of us. We would hop on board with a small ice chest and just ride the route two or three times in a night. Once TxDoT took over the operation of the boats this of course stopped. TxDoT taking over was a good thing though as the Captains that had been running the services for free and out of their own pockets were now getting reimbursed.

There were laughs to be had though. One interview that a local TV news outfit did I will never forget as long as I live. They were asking local students what they thought about the collapse and one student answered, "I thought it was the Jerusalims!" Given what had happened in New York and Washington DC four days earlier the uninformed reply is understandable but the line still made us laugh and still does to this very day.

Pretty soon the Town of South Padre Island had arranged for a small car ferry (6 cars) from Port Aransas to come down and start getting cars off the island with priority being given to the non-locals who had had to leave their cars behind when heading home. Leading up to this, specially called Alderman meetings had been contentious with frustrated tourists and property owners who did not live here full-time wanting to get their vehicles off the island but the town handled it well and in stride. The lines were hours long but some of the locals did get their cars off the island as well.

Once again, this is where the true character of the islanders came out. Everyone needed transportation once they took the pedestrian ferries to Port Isabel and the small car ferries took too long. Thus the informal community car lot was established at South Point Marina. Need a car to go to school or head up the valley for supplies or just get off the island? You found a friend or in many cases someone you may have only met on a few occasions and they would without question hand over their keys with the only requests being that you fill up their tank and let them know where you parked it. It was pretty cool.

As for me and my job, well this is one of those funny things that I still laugh about. Our boss, who lives in Brownsville, brought over a really tiny aluminum boat with a 10 hp motor on it that sat so low in the water with two people in it, it would take on water if there was even a slight chop on the bay. If we needed supplies, he would go get them and we would carry that motor over to the boat, mount it and slowly make the 2 mile journey across the bay to the dock and meet him there. This took about 30 minutes each way and no one in the boat dared to move or sneeze the entire time!

Eventually, there would be a permanent ferry dock constructed at Isla Blanca Park that is still there to this day and larger car ferries were brought down and traffic began to flow more and more regularly. Then on November 27th, the day before Thanksgiving, TXDoT's construction crews gave everyone something to be thankful for. They opened the newly repaired causeway months ahead of schedule. I got in my truck on that morning and headed across it destined to be with my family on Thanksgiving Day in San Antonio. I felt a cold chill as I passed over the new section of bridge and thought of those who did not make it across that night just 3 months earlier.

The Queen Isabella Causeway Collapse brought this community together like no other time I have ever known since I moved here in 1994. We have seen other disasters here like Hurricane Dolly but this was different. South Padre Island was just that, an island cut off from the mainland that had no back-up plan in case the bridge was ever compromised. In spite of that, overnight the locals banded together and came up with one. It was a tragically special time on the island.

I will never forget the four friends I lost that night. I know they are all in a better place looking down on us. Bob is probably helping St. Peter greet people at the Pearly Gates. Hector is belly up to the bar ordering rounds for all of the Angels. 'Poon has his leg back and is riding perfect waves at his own personal point break while Chealsa looks on lounging on the beach sipping boat drinks. As for their son, he is growing up here on South Padre Island and becoming a fine child taken care of by his tender loving Grandmother, Jacky and her circle of friends.

On September 15th, 2001 South Padre Island transcended being a community and became a family. That is the ultimate memory I will always take with me and cherish.

There will be a 10th Anniversary Memorial Service for the victims of the 2001 Queen Isabella Causeway Collapse on Thursday, September 15th at 10AM at the Memorial on South Padre Island. Details are HERE.

Feel free to share your memories in comments below!

Oceanarium Comes to Gladys Porter Zoo!

2011-09-11T21:22:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, September 10th the Gladys Porter Zoo and the Urban Science Initiative hosted Oceanarium, an educational event filled with fun filled children's activities centered around our ocean. So I loaded up my two year old son and headed to Brownsville to go see what it was all about!

The event turned out to be way more than I expected. There were several different activity stations sponsored by organizations such as the Gorgas-Science Society from the University of Texas at Brownsville, Sea Turtle Inc., Walmart and a puppet show by the Valley Proud Environmental Council. The activities included an area that kids could discover how blubber worked by sticking their hands in gloves that were insulated with lard and then sticking the gloves in ice cold water. There were also tables where kids could make fish puppets, learn how to tie maritime knots, learn how atmospheric pressure affects sea level and even see how hurricanes and tornadoes form all through hands on interaction.

All the while there were multiple remote controlled inflatable fish and even a shark swimming through the air above their heads. The shark ran into my son at one point and almost met its demise. (see the video below)

There were two things that really stood out for me though and that was the three dimensional topographical map of the Rio Grande Valley Watershed that the Gorgas-Science Society brought with them and the puppet show that the Valley Proud Environmental Council put on.

The Gorgas-Science Society used the map along with spray bottles with colored water in them to show the children and parents just how pollutants can be deposited anywhere in the Rio Grande Valley and end up in the Lower Laguna Madre and in the Gulf of Mexico. It was simple and it got a lot of attention.

(Photo: David Castro)

The puppet show that VPEC put on was well targeted to the younger children. My son was completely enthralled with it. It included a pirate who meets different coastal animals such as seagulls and dolphins and discovers how beach litter had injured and harmed them. In the end, the animals were all healed and helped out by the pirate who helps clean the beaches of the trash. The overwhelming message driven home was that picking up trash on our beaches was everyone's job and everyone needs to take care of our beaches..

Photo: David Castro

To encourage the kids to go to every station, they were given a sheet that had boxes the tables would sign off on once the child had participated in the activity. After the kids had filled in all the boxes and answered a riddle at the bottom, they were given a ticket to have a DVD made with their family in front of a green screen that would produce a fishing scene. Unfortunately my son had reached his max fun limit and his empty energy limit and the line was too long for us to beat his inevitable meltdown! However, that in itself is a testament to just how popular this event turned out to be with the families.

Family getting their fishing DVD done by Time Warner Cable (Photo: David Castro)

I sincerely hope that the zoo holds this event again next year and that the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter can participate in some small way as this is truly a remarkable and fun event for the kids of Brownsville!

A special thanks goes out to Tony Reisinger and local weather celebrity Tim Smith for organizing the event and to Walmart and the rest of the volunteers!

Raptoberfest on South Padre Island!

2011-09-09T15:01:00.002-05:00

I'm sure everyone has heard of Oktoberfest, the great German Beer Festival but have you heard of Raptoberfest? I know you haven't because this is the first year of many to come!

The Surfrider Foundation will be raising awareness about its international Rise Above Plastics Campaign (the RAP in Raptoberfest) and the dangers plastic pollution poses to our oceans and beaches! Did you know that 90% of all marine litter is plastic and it kills over one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals a year?

In order to better educate the public on this the Surfrider Foundation has declared the month of October Raptober and we are kicking it off on October 1st with our One Foot At A Time Plastic Cleanup event! The idea is simple; collect 1,000 square feet of plastic from our beaches across the United States.

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter and Keep South Padre Island Beautiful will be holding their event at Andy Bowie Park on South Padre Island from 9AM-12PM. We will supply participants with a paper template to be filled with 1 square foot of plastic litter like the one above. After it is filled, we will photograph it and upload it to the Raptoberfest website where it will be displayed and entered for great prizes.

As an added bonus and incentive, we have coordinated with the Padre Island Brewing Company on South Padre Island and will award a gift certificate for every square foot of plastic collected goo for 1 free pint of South Texas' best craft brew! See how we tied Raproberfest in with Oktoberfest?

You can register for the South Padre Island Raptoberfest One Foot At A Time Cleanup here!

For more details on the idea behind how to participate check out the video below!

Labor Day Weekend: Good-bye To the Boys of Summer

2011-09-02T07:10:00.000-05:00

Today marks the beginning of the Labor Day Weekend and the last weekend of Summer. In tribute, here is a strip from one of my favorite comics, Patrick McDonnell's Mutts!

It's Not The Wind Stupid, It's The Water!

2011-08-25T21:21:00.000-05:00

Storm surge during Hurricane Ike at Bolivar Peninsula, Texas in 2008. Another Cat. 3 Storm

I spent most of the day getting more and more frustrated and angry with the rabid media coverage of Hurricane Irene and the potential destruction it will bring to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Yes. This is a major storm. Coastlines will be altered and property will be damaged and lost but the absence of expert coverage of coastlines and hurricanes is ridiculous.. Fox News has been the worst and provides the best example of the stupidity out there.

In a hurricane the wind speed gets all of the attention because it knocks down the trees and severs the power but aside from that it is not really life threatening unless you are sitting in a tent or a recreational vehicle. Coastal structures are made to handle wind. What it really comes down to is the storm surge and the amount of rain that is dumped that provides the greatest risk of danger for loss of life.

Below is a news report from Fox News' O'Reilly Factor tonight from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. It is a perfect illustration of the corespondent not understanding what he is reporting on and putting the emphasis on the wrong thing.

Mr. Roberts laments that they have picked a great place because it is behind a dune and the dune will provide wind protection. Besides they are in a concrete low lying structure. Wrong!

He, or someone at Fox News, has placed himself in what he hopes is as close to the eye of the storm as he can get so he can get the most footage of the destruction. Big mistake there John! You have placed yourself on the front row of the beach which is bad enough but the travesty is you don't even understand the danger! The storm surge that you don't even mention will rush up that beach and, yes, it will hit that dune and be beat back Initially. However, that little walking trail just to the left (rewatch video) that you used to walk down to the beach will allow a channel for the water to breach and penetrate the dune structure and wash it out from behind exposing your refuge to the full force of the surge. This is not to mention the fact the water that will stay behind the dune initially anyway and flood your hotel.

The media needs to get more experts and not corespondents to educate the people that are in danger and not sensationalize the event. I'm not talking about the locals because they know the danger. I'm talking about the tourists that don't know any better!

Accuracy not drama saves lives!

Family Trip or Business Trip? Make it a Wavecation!

2011-08-23T11:46:00.000-05:00

It has been a very long and very very hot summer here in Texas this year. To top it all off, we haven't really had any great surf to speak of other than the two days of Hurricane Don. I have friends that are now currently in Nicaragua surfing and fishing their brains and bodies out and I am still here baking in the South Texas sun and looking at a lake called the Gulf of Mexico.

Truth be told, it is harder than it used to be to just pull up and hop on a bus to Mexico or a plane to Costa Rica or even Nicaragua. With a Wife a two year old and now a new baby on the way it is awkward to tell them that I am fiending for some surf and need to get away. "Of course you're welcomed to come as long as you don't mind chilling in a hammock or the mind numbing boredom of the surf camps that I am accustomed to." Obviously that pitch will not fly! I now have to plan trips for the whole family. After all I do actually want to spend time with them AND get to surf as well.

Enter a new company out of Austin, Texas- Wavecation! There are few surfers in the U.S. that are as innovative and resourceful as Texans who are looking for some waves and there are even fewer that are as surf starved and innovative as Austin Surfers. Matt Thomson has developed a hub for travelers who are frustrated with the lack of surf information on typical travel websites and don't want to spend the exorbitant fees that surf camps can charge.

www.Wavecation.com is a familiar feeling hotel room search site except for one major difference. It is designed for surfers. You type in the city, country or surf break that you are planning on visiting and it will list hotel and condo properties that are located in that area that are near surf spots. It lists the typical information you would find such as if it has a pool, proximity to shopping etc. but again it goes beyond that. When you go to the location of the hotel on the maps, it will show you surf spots that are near by and will also list them as walkable or if you would need a car to get there. It also will let you know if you can rent boards or if you need to bring your own. No surprises here! You can even search by what type of break you would prefer!

So if you are a heading out of town on business or the family is needing a little vacation check out www.wavecation.com and plan one that will allow you to take care of that business and entertain your family but will also allow you to be near some waves!

US 5th Circuit to Decide if Severance v Patterson Moot.

2011-08-09T21:02:00.002-05:00


US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans will be considering if Carol Severance's complaint is moot.

The Texas Open Beaches Act (OBA) has been under a malicious attack by Californian Lawyer and Real Estate Agent Carol Severance and the California based property rights non profit law firm Pacific Legal Foundation since 2006, when The Texas General Land Office (GLO) and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson served her notice that her 3 properties were on the public beach in violation of the OBA and must be removed. Even though Severance was very aware of the risk in buying these properties and knew that two of them were already on the GLO removal list, she filed suit against Patterson to get the Open Beaches Act ruled unconstitutional. Severance v Patterson now represents the life or death of what Texans have enjoyed for 200 years; unrestricted access to all of Texas' beaches.

Since then, the Open Beaches Act was declared constitutional by Texas District Judge Kenneth Hoyt in 2007 who's decision was then appealed by the Pacific Legal Foundation to the United States 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The US 5th Circuit then kicked the case to the Texas Supreme Court who was supposed to answer 3 questions before the Feds would rule. In November 2009, Texas voters went to the polls and enshrined the Open Beaches Act in our State Constitution by a 3 to 1 margin only to then have the Texas Supreme Court go against that with a ruling on Severance v Patterson in November, 2010 that gutted the OBA and forced the GLO to cancel a $40 million beach renourishment project in Galveston after Hurricane Ike.

Then in April, 2011, after much public outrage and dozens of filed briefs by stakeholders and public beach advocacy groups such as Surfrider Foundation, the Texas Supreme Court agreed to rehear arguments. Then we waited to see if the court would overturn their previous ruling and restore the OBA. All the while, Severance was busy selling off her properties that were involved in the case through a FEMA buyout program that was implemented after Hurricane Ike. On June 24th, 2011 she sold her final property and the Texas Attorney General quickly filed a brief asking the Texas Supreme court to declare the case moot and vacate their previous decision since Severance no longer had any conflict with the State of Texas.

The Texas Supreme Court, seeing an opportunity to get rid of this nightmare of a case, has now decided to abate their decision on the rehearing of the case and the certified questions and is now asking the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to declare if Severance's complaint is now moot.

From the official request by the Texas Supreme Court to the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals:

Pursuant to article V, section 3-c of the Texas Constitution and Texas Rule of Appellate
Procedure 58.1, this Court agreed to answer questions of state law certified from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. We issued the opinion on November 5, 2010. We later granted rehearing. While rehearing was pending, Appellant Carol Severance sold the property at issue to the City of Galveston in a Federal Emergency Management Agency buyout program for homes damaged by Hurricane Ike. Appellees contend that Severance’s sale of the real property renders moot both the underlying lawsuit and our consideration of the certified questions on rehearing, and warrants vacating the original opinion. Severance disputes these contentions. The parties have notified the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit of the sale.

The determination whether the federal lawsuit is moot must be made by the Fifth Circuit.
We abate our consideration on rehearing of the certified questions pending this mootness
determination.

The 5th Circuit has agreed to do so and has asked the Texas Attorney General to file a brief by August 15th. If the US 5th Circuit declares the case moot then Texans get their public beaches back as if Carol Severance had never ever come to Texas, if not then the Texas Supreme Court will have to make a decision on the rehearing and answer the 3 certified questions from the Feds. Afterward, the case will go back the 5th Circuit for a final decision on if the Texas Open Beaches Act is indeed constitutional or not based on the Texas Supreme Court's opinion.

I along with 77% of Texas Voters that thought Texas' Public Beaches and access to those beaches were so important we amended our Constitution to protect them are hoping that the US 5th Circuit declares Severance v Patterson moot sending Ms. Severance and the Pacific Legal Foundation back to California never to be welcomed back in Texas again!

Isla Blanca All-Stars Tackle Beach Trash On South Padre Island!

2011-08-01T11:19:00.000-05:00

Isla Blanca Park

Beach trash and how to curb it, especially inside Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island, has been a constant issue for the summer of 2011 for the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter. We have made some real progress in this effort such as Cameron County Parks and Recreation's new efforts to address the issue with a reconfigured personnel schedules and effort to maintain the beaches during the day instead of waiting until the next morning to pick up the trash. The overall appearance of the park has drastically improved since our efforts began in late June and early July. I would like to commend Cameron County's efforts in their efforts!

However, getting park staff to tackle the issue was only one aspect of this endeavor. We also sought to get concerned beach users and citizens to get involved and engage those on the beach. I am stoked to say that a small group of individuals have indeed picked up that torch and have been making a huge impact inside Isla Blanca. I like to call them the Isla Blanca All-Stars! This group was organized by Surfrider Foundation and Lower Rio Grande Valley Sierra Club member Madeleine Sandefur along with Walter and Yolanda Birdwell three weeks ago. They have been going to Isla Blanca every Sunday evening with the mission of doing a beach cleanup and to also engage the people on the beach in an educational effort to spread the word about keeping our beaches clean. There are many people that silently pick up trash on our beaches every day and mumble under their breath their frustration but this is the first real organized group effort.

Isla Blanca All-Stars on Sunday, July 31st. (Missing Madeleine Sandefur)

Donning bright green t-shirts that read, "Respect your beach, Pick up the trash" on the back and "Respeta tu playa, levante la basura" on the front, these rock stars spend about an hour going from group to group passively picking up trash and talking to the visitors enjoying their time on the beach. When they get the opportunity, they also also speak with county employees on what they think may be better ways to manage the trash issue. In my opinion, the most effective part of their campaign is their bilingual approach, something that has been lacking in other efforts.

Yesterday, I had the chance to join them and follow them around the park and watch what they did. Everyone they approached accepted them enthusiastically and then would bid farewell with a "Thank you!" or "God bless you." It was awesome to watch and the input that we got from the park personnel that actually emptied the trash cans and picked up the trash was invaluable.

Organizers Walter and Yolanda Birdwell

This coming Friday, August 5th, at 11 AM Madeleine and crew will be holding a press conference at Isla Blanca Park to raise awareness about their efforts and the importance of keeping our beaches clean. I will be there with bells on and hope that everyone who reads this will also find the time to support this inspirational group of individuals!

Thank you Isla Blanca All-Stars!!

Cameron County's Plan For Dangerous Beach Development

2011-07-27T17:44:00.000-05:00

Portion of Cameron County Beach on South Padre Island set for development

Development of the Cameron County controlled north end of South Padre Island is set to explode. The lots have been subdivided, subdivisions have been drawn up, utilities have been run, beach accesses have been planned and a planning and zoning committee has been sat. Currently, there are 2 subdivisions being constructed. Some lots have already been lost to the ocean and the public beach easement as that part of South Padre island is rapidly eroding. However, instead of responsibly planning for the constant shoreline shift landward and requiring construction to move further back, the county is actually trying to allow construction closer to the water.

Lots of Cameron County Beach Access #6 that are set for development

During the 81st Texas Legislature, the state passed legislation that requires local governments to come up with Erosion Response Plans (ERP) that would be adopted into their current Dune Protection Plans. The purpose of these plans according to the Texas General Land Office is:

..."to reduce public expenditures for erosion and storm damages. The plans may include provisions for establishing a building setback, protecting public beach access and the public beach easement, and procedures for preserving, restoring, and enhancing critical sand dunes that are necessary to protect public and private property from storms and erosion."

What the Cameron County Dune Protection Committee started to come up with really did look good on the surface in the beginning. They were adamant about not having a building setback line but establishing what they called a "conservation zone" where no construction could occur. This would be an area that would start 20 feet inside the public beach easement and go back a certain distance and would include a continuous vegetated dune called the erosion protection dune that could not be touched and would provide protection for properties behind it while establishing a consistent line of vegetation with the hope that the dune could help the public beach start moving seaward instead of landward over a long period of time.

Of course myself, as well as others saw this through the lens of current beach construction setback minimums. Currently under the Texas administrative code, no construction (including retaining walls) can take place within 200' of the established line of vegetation, which at the absolute minimum is 200' from the mean low tide line, giving you a total of 400' from the MLT before construction could even be considered. That would still give the conservation zone and, more importantly, the public beach 200' to move around in if their "shoreline advance" didn't work.

After the smoke and mirrors are lifted though one can see the reality of the plan.

The conservation zone currently relies on the property owners themselves buying into the idea and financing the construction and maintenance of the erosion protection dune. To get every beachfront property owner to cooperate would be almost certainly an impossible task. There has been talk of the county paying for this but currently the county can't even afford to maintain their beaches they are responsible for now.

Secondly and most importantly, once one crunches the final distance numbers that the County Dune Protection Committee is putting forth, they are actually moving their construction line seaward. Not only are they not maintaining their current building setbacks, they are actually attempting to relax them. The conservation zone and erosion protection dune start 180' back from MLT and cover 75' with a small 25' buffer zone after that before initial construction of a retaining wall can begin. That adds up to 280 feet from MLT. This has actually allowed construction to begin 120' closer to the water! That is 120' of sand, vegetation, dunes and distance gone that would have acted as protection for new development. The purpose of the ERPs were to encourage the protection of dunes and yet they are actually making it possible to destroy more.

The argument they use for this is to avoid unconstitutional takings suits against the county. I can understand that except, once again, these investors all knowingly invested in highly risky pieces of property that are located on a very dynamic barrier island in an area that is vulnerable to high energy oceanic events like hurricanes. They also acknowledged they knew that their investments could be lost to the sea by signing Open Beaches Act Disclosure Statements when they closed on their property. In my opinion, the real reason for the movement seaward is that there are members of the Cameron County Dune Protection Committee that are personally involved in developing the northern county beaches and will profit greatly from that development. This plan makes it appear that they are trying to comply when, in reality, they have no intention of doing so.

The idea of the mandated ERPs were the result of Hurricanes Dolly and Ike decimating the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association that was supposed to be able to cover hurricane damages to coastal properties. It didn't and as a result millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on repairing homes and buying out property owners that were not insured. $25 million was spent by FEMA alone in Galveston to buy out homes at inflated pre-storm values. That program, by the way, is being investigated for fraudulent claims. The ERPs were to be designed in a way that would encourage development that would not be so vulnerable. Galveston and Corpus Christi both moved their building setback lines for new development back as Nueces County had already done before the storms.


Hurricane Ike's (300 miles away) storm surge on South Padre Island.

The taxpayer expenditure doesn't end at possible storm damage. The City of South Padre Island definitely made some serious errors in its past as far as where they allowed development to take place along their beachfront. As a result, they are now locked in a vicious never ending cycle of trying to find funding every year for very expensive beach dredge and fill projects. Where do you think the majority of that money comes from. Yes, taxpayers. With this plan, Cameron County almost guarantees that they will be destined for that same fate except that the beaches this new development is set to take place on are eroding much more rapidly.

Yet Cameron County is in the process of moving closer to danger?

The plan has to be approved by the Texas General Land Office yet and it will go up before public comment before that does or does not happen. I can not even imagine that they would approve such a plan but stranger thing have certainly happened.

For Better or For Worse: Glass Sucks!

2011-07-22T10:59:00.000-05:00

This just about sums up what I hate about beach litter......

From the author of "Better or For Worse", Lynn Johnston....

"Cartoonists are discouraged from using comic strips as a platform for preaching reform - but every now and then, something really gets under your skin and you simply have to write about it. For me, littering is a red flag. If I ruled the world all convicted litterists would receive a stiff fine, a broom and a dustpan. They would be sentenced to cleaning the community streets, parks and beaches for as long as it took to reform them - and even then, they would be on parole.

When Katie cut her foot on a broken beer bottle at the beach one weekend, I penned this Sunday page - and the response was immediate. I received a lot of mail from folks who feel the same way I do - and it occurred to me: with so many people angry, frustrated and disgusted by littering, why do we still have so darned much of it??!"

Public Beach Access: Simple Yet So Complex

2011-07-12T02:50:00.000-05:00

Print by Ken Auster on 2011 Surfrider Foundation Membership Shirt that shows what most people
envision when presented with the question of public beach access.

"The public, individually and collectively, has an unrestricted right to use and a right of ingress to and egress from a public beach. The right granted by this subsection is dedicated as a permanent easement in favor of the public."- Article I Section 33 of the Texas Constitution

"The Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world's oceans, waves and beaches for all people..." -Surfrider Foundation Mission Statement

Beach Access or, more specifically, Public Beach Access seems like a simple enough idea and concept doesn't it? At its core it is about providing access to the beaches along our coasts to everyone. In Texas, it is actually a right protected under our state Constitution. There are more than a few advocacy groups such as the Surfrider Foundation that strive to protect this right where it exists and acquire it where it does not.

However, you would be hard pressed to find that these groups or even people within these groups agree on what public beach access is or what it includes. Does beach access just mean that- access to the beach and stop there? Does it include amenities such as convenient parking, unrestricted vehicle access or can it include fees or taxes that are paid by beach users to help the municipalities maintain the beaches and keep them clean? Individuals that are very hardcore public beach access advocates have very differing opinions on these ideas and like everything else that starts as a very simple idea, public beach access can blow up into a highly complex debate that is often shaped by which region one of these individuals was raised in or is accustomed to and how much environmental impact by humans they are willing to tolerate.

The following are 4 examples of different types of public beach access concepts that are out there and in practice and their pros and cons as far as convenience of access to the beach and environmental impact. I find that everyone I have talked to about public beach access falls somewhere within these examples. Maybe not specifically a certain category, but their idea encompasses elements from some or all of these.

Obviously if you add in the presence or absence of other coastal development, this can get even more complicated so for the purpose of this post, let's imagine an empty slate with the existence of some paved roads but nothing else.

Completely Unrestricted Public Access:

This would be public beach access that allows for vehicles to drive and park on the beaches completely unrestricted allowing for the most convenient form of beach access. While I know of nowhere that there is a truly unrestricted beach in the US, all that I know of that do allow vehicle access still enforce heavy fines for driving in "protected areas" such as dunes and mangroves, this is the most liberal of the access concepts.

There is no arguing the convenience of this but the environmental impacts that come along with it are the worst imaginable for a sandy beach such as a barrier island. Vehicles such as 4X4s compact the sand and destroy vegetation exacerbating erosion on these beaches and create a hazard for local marine life such as nesting sea turtles (this has actually resulted in Padre Island National Sea Shore reducing speed limits on its beaches during Sea Turtle Nesting Season). Allowing people to "truck" themselves, their groceries and grills in for the day or for the weekend also allows for way more litter to be left behind and spread more widely by careless or ignorant beach users. It also creates a considerably dangerous situation for families enjoying the beach because vehicles and beach goers often share the same section of wet beach to hang out and drive on. Speeding cars and children or careless adults don't often mix well. On South Padre Island, the northern Cameron County Beaches are great examples of this. As a result of these cons, there is more of a push for pedestrian-only beaches in this area.

Pedestrian-Only Beaches with adjacent parking:

In lieu of vehicle access I will use Texas as an example of the next option. In Texas where there is not vehicle access allowed on the beach, there are rules that govern the Open Beaches Act that state that there must be adjacent parking to the beach with one parking spot available for every 15 linear of feet of pedestrian-only beach and a public beach access point at least every 1/2 mile. There have been many exceptions made to this rule. However, I will not go into them here. If these rules were followed to the letter though, it means the construction of parking areas very near the beach which, while not as convenient as parking anywhere on the beach, provide for quick and relatively easy access to the public beaches. Different areas in Texas achieve this in different ways; either through parking cul-de-sacs and roadside parking like within the City of South Padre Island or parking on the beach but only in designated areas cordoned of by cable and bollards like in areas along the Coastal Bend of Texas.

Environmentally this typically can mean less trash on the beach because theoretically one can only take what they can carry with them to the beach but that can also depend on just how close the parking spaces are to the actual beach. The parking areas themselves can have as big of an impact as allowing cars to drive on the beaches though. Depending on where they are constructed, the use of adjacent parking could mean the destruction or "mitigation" of dune ridges, beach vegetation or both. This affects the sand exchange within the beach ecosystem which, again, amplifies erosion and impairs a beaches natural ability to repair itself after a storm. It also means the destruction of habitat for beach flora and fauna.

Though there are obvious environmental impacts, there are ways that this could be minimized.

Pedestrian-Only Beaches with remote parking and public transportation:

Simply put, a pedestrian-only beach that has no adjacent or inadequate adjacent parking but is accessible through some form of public transportation that shuttles beach goers from a remote public parking site - no parking on the beach or right next to the beach.

Environmentally, this would leave the beach ecosystem free from the impacts of cars and development almost completely depending on where the drop off points were and how far a beach user was required to hike or bike along with the trails needed for them to do so. Litter wise, the available trash that could be left behind would be reduced to what someone could fit into a back pack or cooler that they were willing to walk with over a long period of time. Though I have never been there, this is the sort of access that is available for Trestles in Southern California which has a robust public transportation system. South Padre Island is looking into this to supplement the lack of adjacent public beach parking spots they have. Though SPI currently has not the resources to realistically move people efficiently to the beaches from remote locations.

Pedestrian-Only Beaches with no public parking or accessibility plan:

There is a beach there that is not private and it is public for anyone to use and enjoy but getting there would require a hefty effort such as by a watercraft, long hike or bike trek.

Perhaps the most environmentally considerate to the beach ecosystem, it's remoteness and lack of public access means a near pristine secluded area for the beach user and the animal life to enjoy but it is an adventuresome odyssey to get there.

The above Public Beach Access options also have a determination as to how many people frequent those beaches. The less effort it takes to be on the beach, the more people will frequent it. This also weighs on what is perceived as a desirable public beach access plan by some.

Beach User Fees:

"...the public shall have the free and unrestricted right of ingress and egress to the larger area extending from the line of mean low tide to the line of vegetation bordering on the Gulf of Mexico."- Chapter 61.011 of the Texas Natural Resources Code. (Texas Open Beaches Act)

All of the beach access scenarios above also do not include what can really become the ignition point within the public beach access debate....BEACH USER FEES.

The Texas Open Beaches Act states very simply that we have the right to free and unrestricted access to the public beaches but yet there are provisions in the rules governing the TOBA that allow counties and municipalities to charge a parking or beach user fee (BUF). While the public beaches of Texas are state owned, the state leaves it up to the locals to maintain and clean their beaches refunding only a small percentage of the costs to do this each year. All BUFs are tied directly to parking, must be used to make up the difference of the cost to improve public access, maintain the beaches or any other expense related to that such as personnel. They are also goverened by specific rules set forth by and controlled by the state. BUFs must be reasonable and may not discriminate on the basis of residence. In other words, if a town decides to implement a BUF it can not create an exemption for residents and everyone pays regardless of where they are from. As far as a reasonable rate, I do not think anywhere in Texas, charges more than $8 per car to park for the day. Is this reasonable? That is up to the individual to decide.

I have seen beach user fees be used in positive ways in this area. They help to maintain the county beach parks (Cameron County is the only local entity with a BUF). They have also been used to curb our trash problem on the northern beaches with the "Cash for Trash" deposit for bag program which the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter supported. We are talking tons and tons of trash kept off of our beaches.

I have also seen attempts to use them in discriminatory ways here in the City of South Padre Island. Right now, public beach parking is free but Beach User Fees have come up in discussion recently. Originally the City publicly stated it wanted to implement fees that were higher than Cameron County's fees to drive undesirable beach goers, those that were not spending enough money in the city, to the county beaches. The City also wanted to create an exemption for residents so that they wouldn't have to be burdened with the fee to access their beaches. The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter was very vocal about their opposition to this. The state thankfully put the axe to both of those plans saying that they would not be able to charge more than the county and that the rules did not allow exemptions as stated above.

I tend to see the use of fees for public access through the way that Texas BUFs are set up and governed, but what the City of South Padre Island tried to do is similar to the way fess are utilized in other parts of the country, especially New Jersey, where they are made to be unwelcoming to visitors and favor the desirable residents and well heeled tourist. The use of fees to discriminate represents the very negative and highly contested aspect of beach user fees.

The debate about the best public beach access policy is no doubt complex, as you can see and many individuals and groups can make very compelling arguments to adapt any of these scenarios and in some cases a combination of them. I thank Mark Babski personally for making me really think about the concept of Public Beach Access and what it really means. This is something that I think most honest Public Beach Access and Beach Activists wrestle with a lot. You do want the public beach access but at the same time you don't want to destroy the reason you enjoy heading out to the beach in the first place.

I honestly would like to see a discussion evolve in the comments below and see what you think about this and what your opinion on public beach access is. This is not about my opinion this time, it's about yours!

What say you?

Cash For Trash: April- June, 2011 Report

2011-07-07T12:10:00.000-05:00

In 2010 Cameron County, through the suggestion of the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter and with the help of the Texas General Land Office, implemented the "Cash for Trash" program on the northern beaches of South Padre Island, Texas. The program is simple; a deposit of $5 is collected from each vehicle that enters County Beach accesses 5 & 6 and a trash bag with receipt is given out. If the car returns a bag full of trash, they get their deposit back. If not, the money goes into a beach maintenance fund to clean the beaches of the litter left behind.

In the first month the program was implemented in 2010, just under 46 tons of trash was kept of of the northern Cameron County Beaches!

So how has the program been working so far in 2011? The "Cash for Trash" program was reactivated in April this year and the first official numbers will be presented to the Cameron County Commissioners Court tonight but you get the sneak peek.

Since April 13, 2011:

56.21 tons of trash have been collected and kept of the beaches. (Numbers based on Waste Management Return Invoices)
36, 325 deposits taken
21,948 deposits refunded
61% of bags returned for deposit back.

Disappointingly this is a drop-off from last year's 77% return rate. However that was only one month of data.

The very obvious impact of this program is that it has reduced the beach trash on the northern Cameron County Beaches by 56 tons since April of 2011! (That's 112,000 pounds)

"The Morning After"; The Cleanup That Never Happened!

2011-07-05T12:02:00.001-05:00

The view of Isla Blanca Park on the "Morning After"!

Today, July 5th, 2011 was supposed to be the day that the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter was to have their "Morning After" Beach Cleanup to raise awareness about the beach litter issue within Isla Blanca County Park on South Padre Island. I woke up at 6:30 this morning and got everything together, loaded up my pickup truck and headed out to the park. I expected the worse.

When I pulled up to the beach, Cameron County Parks and Recreation Interim Director Marty Pena and Deputy Director Joe Vega were standing there to meet me with smiles on their faces. When I walked up to them, Joe asked me what I thought. As I looked over the beach, I saw nothing but sand and water with the few beach goers that had already shown up at the park to enjoy the beach and the park. I SAW NO TRASH!

I looked at Joe and Marty and very very elatedly told them, " Thank You!". What had begun as a beach cleanup soon became a celebration of very stoked volunteers, activists and beach enthusiasts! Everyone was very happy and extremely thankful!

I, along with the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter, would like to extend our very enthusiastic appreciation to Joe, Marty, the rest of the Cameron County Parks and Recreation Management and Cameron County Public Works on what seems to be the turning over of a new leaf on the management of Isla Blanca Park.

I have never been so happy to have been shown up on an issue. I truly hope that this is the beginning of the norm of how Isla Blanca Park is taken care of.

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter, along with other groups, will continue with its anti-litter campaign this summer by having beach cleanups and engaging the public on the importance of properly disposing of their trash so that the burden does not entirely fall upon the county parks system. We have begun by posting the below sign to help with awareness and help people make sure that our litter laws are enforced.

Thank you Marty and Joe!

Landlocked Surfer

2011-07-01T10:35:00.000-05:00

Thanks Zits for making me laugh!

Isla Blanca Park Trash: How You Can Help!

2011-06-29T22:04:00.000-05:00

The beaches of Isla Blanca continue to be trashed on a daily basis by uncaring visitors and those uncaring visitors are being enabled by a lack of enforcement within the park and a County Judge who has no interest in addressing this problem. He is content to continue to punt the ball to others and not use the influence of his office to bear all resources available in the park to address and solve this problem.. This past week the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter had decided that they had had enough and contacted KGBT News to come out and cover the story and publicly air their complaints. (Click on the image below to link to the news story.)

As a result of this story we have been able to open up a dialogue with Cameron County Parks and Recreation on this issue and been able to apply pressure to get something done on an administrative and policy enforcement level. We still are waiting for a sit down however with the Constables Office and hope to have that happen soon.

While this process is working itself out, it is time for all of those beach lovers, surfers and park users that have been dutifully picking up the refuse of other people on an individual basis to unite together over the summer and let the County know that there is an army of people out there that do care and are walking the walk and we want them to step up their efforts and follow our examples!

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter is asking you to help us keep the pressure on the Parks Department and the Constables. How? Well it is pretty simple!

The "Morning After Beach Cleanup", the first in a series of very public and very documented beach cleanups within Isla Blanca Park will be held on July 5th at 9AM at the DJ Lerma Pavillion! The concept is simple. Come to the park and help us clean up the trash left behind by the crowds on the 4th of July!
Following the "Morning After Cleanup" we will be organizing groups on the weekends to go out on the beach with bags and shirts, clean and engage the public in an effort to help educate them on the importance of keeping our beaches clean and properly disposing of their waste.
In between all of this we are asking you to be the eyes of the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter and Cameron County by sending your complaints, pictures and stories about any litter problems to the following county individuals. Don't worry about bothering them, they have asked for you to send them your concerns by asking to be elected and appointed.

REPORT ALL LITTERERS BY PHONE TO CAMERON COUNTY PCT.1 CONSTABLE HORACIO ZAMORA: 956-943-6757
Follow up by emailing complaints and pictures to the following:

Judge Carlos Cascos: Carlos.Cascos@co.cameron.tx.us
Pct. 1 Commissioner Sofia Benavides: sbenavides@co.cameron.tx.us
Pete Selpuveda: psepulveda@co.cameron.tx.us
Javier Mendez: JMendez@co.cameron.tx.us
Joe Vega: JEVega@co.cameron.tx.us

This is a campaign that can be won on a local level by all of you that care about our beaches. We have been fighting this fight on an individual and small group basis for years. It's time to unite and let those that trash our beaches know we have had enough and help Cameron County get its act together.

"CONSTANT PRESSURE, ENDLESSLY APPLIED."

Severance v Patterson: Has Carol Severance Sunk Her Own Case?

2011-06-27T17:19:00.000-05:00

The Pacific Legal Foundation may have to postpone their party!

On June 24th, 2011, Texas Assistant Solicitor General Aurthur C D'Adrea filed a letter with the clerk of the Texas Supreme Court, Blake Hawthorne requesting that the Texas Supreme Court vacate their previous ruling in the Severance v Patterson Open Beaches Act Case citing that Carol Severance has lost standing and made her arguments moot by closing on her final Texas property that was involved in the case., an action that her legal team stated would not happen as long as the suit was still being heard.

If the court does follow this action it would restore the Texas Open Beaches Act and the Public Beach as a rolling easement!

The official letter is below. (Highlights added by myself)

"TO THE HONORABLE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS:

The State respectfully submits this letter to notify the Court that Carol Severance has
rendered this case moot by selling her last remaining property at issue in this lawsuit. We
respectfully urge the Court to follow the established practice of vacating the last
opinion—issued before this Court granted rehearing—and returning this matter to the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to dismiss as moot.

1. It has come to our attention, through communication with counsel for Galveston
city officials, that Severance has taken unilateral action to render this case moot. Today she
sold her last remaining property at issue in this lawsuit to the City of Galveston under a
federal disaster-assistance program funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
See 42 U.S.C. § 5170c. The FEMA grant provides federal funding for local governments to
purchase properties with structures that are more than 50% damaged following a federally
declared major disaster. Id.; see also H.B. No. 4586, 81st Leg., R.S., § 87 (appropriating
additional matching funds to the General Land Office to assist with the program). Through
this program, Severance was paid substantially more for the damaged house than the amount she paid for the undamaged house in 2005.

Before this cause was argued, the State notified the Court that Severance had entered
into a contract to sell her properties under the federal buyout program, and that if she did so,
judicial resources devoted to hearing oral argument and drafting an opinion would be wasted.
See State Letter to the Court (Nov. 5, 2009). In response, Severance repeatedly assured the
Court that she would never close on the contracts while this suit was pending. See, e.g.,
Severance Letter to the Court (Nov. 6, 2009) (“[S]he will not close on all properties while
this suit is pending.”); Severance Letter to the Court (Nov. 18, 2009) (“Severance does not
plan on closing on both properties while this suit is ongoing.”); id. (“She simply does not
have to close on both—ever.”).

Despite these representations to the Court, Severance did exactly what she said she
would never do. She no longer owns her properties, so there is no live controversy between
the parties to resolve. Williams v. Lara, 52 S.W.3d 171, 184 (Tex. 2000) (“If a case becomes
moot, the parties lose standing to maintain their claims.”). With rehearing pending in this
Court, Severance has mooted the case, and deprived the State of an opportunity for further
review of an opinion controversially addressing fundamental issues of Texas law.

2. The Court should follow the established practice of vacating the latest opinion
before returning this matter to the Fifth Circuit. Although the case no longer presents a live
dispute, the Court “retain[s] certain limited authority to dispose of the case.” Travelers Ins.
Co. v. Joachim, 315 S.W.3d 860, 865 (Tex. 2010). When a pending case is rendered moot
by voluntary action of the prevailing party, it is sound appellate practice to vacate the latest
opinion before dismissing the matter. See United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36,
39 (1950); WesternGeco Res., Inc. v. Burch, 317 S.W.3d 555 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th
Dist.] 2010) (vacating panel opinion when the case became moot after en banc rehearing was
granted); cf. Valley Baptist Med. Ctr. v. Gonzalez, 33 S.W.3d 821, 821-22 (Tex. 2000)
(vacating the court of appeals’ opinion). This “normal practice” recognizes that the party
seeking review of the latest opinion (in this case, the State) has been “frustrated” by an action
beyond its control. Camreta v. Greene, 131 S. Ct. 2020, 2026-27 (2011). A contrary rule
would allow a prevailing party to obtain through unilateral action what it was unable to
accomplish in opposing a rehearing motion or a petition for review. Public-interest litigants,
in particular, would have the perverse incentive to deliberately moot their lawsuits and
thereby enshrine into law opinions on which review or rehearing had been granted. The
Court should not encourage such gamesmanship by endorsing that result in such a highly
visible case. Nor should it permit an opinion to stand, by default, that was under active
reconsideration by the Court.

Respectfully submitted.
/s/ Arthur C. D’Andrea
Arthur C. D’Andrea
Assistant Solicitor General
P.O. Box 12548
Austin, Texas 78711
(512) 936-2868
(512) 474-2697 [fax]
State Bar No. 24050471

International Surfing Day 2011: Best Session Of The Year!

2011-06-21T12:33:00.000-05:00

June 20th, 2011 once again brought International Surfing Day to South Padre Island in the form of Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter's 5th Annual Children's Surf Clinic!

110 kids from all over Texas joined in the fun as dozens of volunteer instructors from the local surf shops, the South Padre Island Coast Guard Station and from the local surfing community came together to get them their first surfing experience. At the same time the children were taught the importance of keeping the beaches clean and taking responsibility for the care of our coastal resources. The kids were shown examples of plastic bottles and bags that had been fed upon by our local sea turtle population.

And of course, they got to surf........

Once again the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter could not have done this without the help of our group of great sponsors and retail members! Thanks to Island Native Surfhouse and On the Beach for providing the surfboards and instructors from their shops. Thanks goes out to the South Padre Island Coast Guard for also coming out volunteering as instructors and kid wranglers. Finally, a huge thank you goes out to Psychadeli for feeding all of the kids by donating over 100 lunches hand made the morning of the vent and thanks to Toucan Graphics and Si Creations for the event shirts!

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter had a great time again this year and we can not wait until next year!!

Beach Trash: It affects Public Access

2011-06-06T13:24:00.001-05:00

The above banner is what we put up at all of the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter events on South Padre Island. It is a direct reference to the Texas Open Beaches Act which states, " It is affirmed to be public policy of this state that the public, individually and collectively, shall have the free and unrestricted right of ingress and egress from the state-owned beaches bordering on the seaward side of the Gulf of Mexico.." Texans hold this so dear to their hearts that in 2009, they voted it into their State Constitution by a 3 to 1 margin!

Perhaps some Texans have come a take this right for granted and no longer realize the responsibility that this right puts on them. The banner has dual meanings. Yes, it refers to the Open Beaches Act, but it also conveys that it is your beach to take care of as well. Enjoy the pleasures that the beach gives you and your family but also take care of that awesome resource.

Last week I began what has now become a series of blog posts on the epidemic of beach trash and utter lack of respect that some beach users show for the beach along with possible solutions to engage those individuals and solve this problem. However, this is not just a beach trash issue, it is a public access issue!

Yes the public beaches have been assaulted by private property owners who have made very risky and dangerous investments along the Texas Coast and now want the state to bail them out. This has been going on for years and the impact of decisions in these cases are sudden and very very obvious. The most recent case in point is Severanc v Patterson and the Texas Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Open Beaches Act. A ruling that will hopefully be overturned soon.

It is the smaller changes that are happening to our beach access that are slowly making it more difficult for Texans and visitors to the state to easily access our beaches. These are changes that are legal in essence but violate the spirit of Open Beaches and it is all tied directly to people who trash our beaches and disrespect the areas that the beaches are located in.

The best local example is the City of South Padre Island. In 2010, the city passed an ordinance that restricts parking on it's east/west streets that feed onto Gulf Blvd. the bordering street to the beach. While these streets had never been officially designated as "public beach parking", they had historically been used as such. The city sold it as a ordinance that addressed public safety and private property owner protection. However, it was already illegal to park in someone's driveway without their permission, park in the road or near an intersection, so what was the real reason behind the ordinance which blatantly discriminated against the "daytrippers"? Trash and disrespect of the city.

People were parking in these spots and leaving their trash there when they left, if it made it back with them to the car from the beach at all. Some individuals would actually clean out their cars there, leave the trash on the side of the road and drive off. Whether this was solely the "daytrippers" or not does not much matter because they were the ones that were blamed. Property Owners got fed up and started complaining, the city got tired of having to clean up the mess and and from their perspective it was easier to take the parking away and hope that those that utilized the free spots inside the city would take themselves and their trash to the county parks. IT WAS ABOUT TRASH, NOT SAFETY!

What's next on the agenda for public parking within the City of South Padre Island? They are currently trying to figure out a way to start charging Beach User Fees to park on Gulf Blvd. in the designated public beach parking spots. The BUFs are being sold as a way to promote turnover within the spots so more people can enjoy the beach. In the beginning however, it was overtly stated by some City Council Members and residents that they wanted to utilize the fees to drive the "daytrippers" back to the county parks "where they belong". The initial idea was to charge more for a parking spot on Gulf Blvd. than Cameron County did to get into the beach parks AND find a way to exclude residents from paying the fee. Residential exemption is not legal under the rules of beach user fees and the Texas General Land Office informed the city that they would have to enter into an inter-local agreement with Cameron County on the fess and could not charge more than the county did.

Paid parking will probably eventually come to Gulf Blvd. in some form or another and the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter is not necessarily against it if they are fair and used in their intended way; to help pay for cleaning the beaches, public beach access improvements and amenity maintenance. We will not support them as a tool to further discriminate against certain types of beach users by making it more difficult for them to access their public beaches.

The Severance v Patterson Texas Supreme Court Case is a very loud and obvious attack on the public beaches that Texans have enjoyed for hundreds of years but the disrespect and carelessness of some beach users is just as big of a threat to the "unrestricted" right of Texans to access and use their public beaches.

My parents taught me that if you don't respect something you may lose it. If Texans don't wake up and realize that while yes it is their beach, it is also theirs to take care of and respect then they will find it harder and harder to get to them until one day the public beaches are gone.

WAKE UP!

Beach Trash: Why Not Just Write A Ticket?

2011-06-02T10:21:00.000-05:00

This by itself would probably solve the problem!

With the coming and passing of the Memorial Day Weekend, Summer is here and with it the awareness of the impact of all the sun and water worshiping visitors to the South Padre Island and Cameron County beaches becomes very very evident. To put it simply, masses of people come in, enjoy the beach and some leave what they brought behind half buried in the sand, blowing in the wind and floating in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

I have laid out the theory of why it is such a huge problem on the County beaches and how it could be addressed. But we are kidding ourselves if we do not think that the City of South Padre Island is immune to the problem. Ever been to the beach in front of the Wanna Wanna beach bar on a weekend? While the county is always slow to react to the problem, South Padre Island leaders are sometimes quick and overt in their response. The seasonal parking restrictions on the east/west side streets between Gulf and Padre Blvd.s is an example of this. Restrict the available convenient parking to the undesirable "daytripper", whom in SPI's erroneous opinion do not contribute to the local economy and only burdens the city's resources, and they will take themselves and their trash back to the county beaches.

I am not going to revisit the problems with Cameron County's or South Padre Island's approach to controlling their beaches in this. I've done it and those issue are slowly being worked out. What I do want to address is the question that I constantly bring up and you always ask.....

"Why are we not writing littering tickets on the beaches?!"

The very simple and unfortunate answer from all parties involved is this . The law or code enforcement officer has to personally witness the act or a witness has to report the offender to those authorities. Just as with speeding, no seat belt, public intoxication or any other ticketable violations, the offense has to be witnessed. This is the problem we and law enforcement faces. Just because there is a pile of empty cans, bags, plates, cups, etc. a foot away from someone that does not make them an offender. They have to be seen dropping the trash and then leaving it behind.

This means that the solution must come from outside the box. Yes, education is the most powerful tool and that is addressed below but that does take time and does not address the immediate problem we face today. So what could be some immediate solutions that law enforcement or you as an individual can do to help with this problem?

Cash for Trash- This is the successful program Cameron County implemented on the north beaches with the help of the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter. This program requires a dedicated entry and exit point for the distribution and collection of the bags. It also has the possibility of penalizing those that would not normally be littering the beach. It will not work on South Padre Island City beaches.
Better Litter Control Management- This would require that the current trash barrels on the beach be more conveniently located for beach users and the barrels be more often emptied throughout the day by the City and County Public Works Crews. On busy weekends, this would more than likely have to occur without the use of heavy vehicles on the beach for crowd safety. It also requires the use of can liners which the SPI does use and Cameron County does not. The spacing and density of the barrels themselves should also be flexible. Evenly spaced in straight lines may look nice but it is inefficient and inconvenient when some parts of the beach may have a large concentration of people and others may be practically deserted as is the case on most weekends. Barrels will also need to be moved with the tides.
Engagement- While it may be difficult for law and code enforcement to write actual tickets, they could actively engage the visitors and let them know that they are watching and would appreciate them not leaving their refuse behind. This is also a solution that can be actively undertaken by concerned citizens and groups such as the Surfrider Foundation. It is possible to do this in a non-confrontational and educational way and leave both parties satisfied.
Signage- I am not a big fan of signs as I really think the more their are, the more people ignore them but a large visual billboard leading into SPI or Port Isabel may be effective. See image below.
Undercover Code Enforcement- This was done by Miami last summer. Undercover officers are posted along the beach in plain clothes and report any offenders back to uniformed officers who then ticket the litterer.

Redondo Beach Billboard made of actual trash taken off of it's beaches by the Surfrider Foundation Long Beach Chapter

These are just a few examples of how the litter issue could be addressed realizing the difficulty of ticketing those who would normally have no problem leaving behind their trash. These were all addressed in a meeting between Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos, County Manager Pete Sepulveda and Surfrider South Texas yesterday in Brownsville. I am sure there are other ideas out there and I have heard many more that I have not listed. Another meeting is being scheduled for next week and will also include Cameron County Constable Zamora and Parks and Recreation Department Representatives. If you have ideas, now is the time for them to be expressed!

What are your ideas on stemming the tide of trash on our summer beaches here on South Padre Island? Leave them in the comment section!

Trashing South Padre Beaches: It's A Cutural Thing?!

2011-05-31T17:02:00.000-05:00

(Photo: Wade Dunkin)

Last year about this time, you know leading into the summer beach season and all, I wrote an open letter to the Rio Grande Valley asking them to please take a minute, respect the beautiful natural resource that is our beach and ocean and pick up their trash before they left. One year later, here we are after Memorial Day, the first official weekend of summer, and nothing has really changed at Isla Blanca Park.

I walked through Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island yesterday after surfing and saw the usual spread of litter the local visitors leave behind. Dirty diapers at the public showers and on the beach. Chip, ice and plastic shopping bags from Stripes, Walmart and HEB floating along the beach like tumbleweeds heading for the sand dunes or the Gulf of Mexico; wherever they got snagged first. Plastic water and soda bottles floating in the shore break and laying around on the beach. Bud Light cans in the sand, along and in the water, crumpled up and sticking out waiting for an unaware beach user to step on them with their bare feet.

(Photo: Wade Dunkin)

It's OK though because I have been told time and time again that it's a cultural thing. It's not the visitors' fault from the Rio Grande Valley, they are just ignorant and poor valley residents from the colonias and barrios of Brownsville, Laguna Heights, Harlingen, McAllen, Pharr, Roma, Rio Grande City and so on. They just don't know any better. Go back and read those last two sentence again. If I had gone up and said that to any one of those people on that beach at Isla Blanca this past weekend, I would have been called a racist and probably and rightfully ended up in the hospital!

You know what though? In the meetings that I have had with people that are responsible for coming up with and getting litter laws enforced in Cameron County, I have heard that "cultural" excuse over and over again. It is an accepted stereotype in the Rio Grande Valley by your leaders! What an insult to you! Is that part of your culture; trashing everything you come across? I would be willing to bet a million dollars that that is not something you claim as part of your heritage.

Do you know why some South Padre Island locals refer to you as Valley Trash? Look at what is left behind after a summer weekend on the beaches, in the water, along Parkroad 100, caught in the fences and trees around HEB and Walmart and you will see the answer! Am I picking on the Valley? You bet I am. Visitors from the Rio Grande Valley make up a huge majority of visitors every weekend to the county parks and they leave the lion's share of what is left behind. Do others from outside the Valley litter, sure they do. However, as in most things in life the majority will get the blame and you do get blamed every time the trash issue comes up.

Trash can in the picture has been full since Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. 2 days ago.

This does not rest entirely on the visitors however. Cameron County is also to blame for not really wanting to tackle the problem itself. Yes, Cameron County implemented the much celebrated "Cash for Trash" program at County Accesses 5 & 6 and I applaud that proactiveness but then they stopped there with only part of the problem alleviated. In 2009, Cameron County Commissioners Court abolished the Park Ranger Division and placed law enforcement and safety in the parks under the Constables office. A move that was claimed at the time to save money. Here we are two years later and the Constables now take more money out of the Parks and Recreation budget than the Park Rangers did and the presence of officers in the park is but a fraction of what it used to be (it is actually close to zero on the beach itself). Usually it is a lone Constable truck driving through Isla Blanca on the park road every few hours and not stopping to actually get out and patrol the beaches on foot. You can't see the problem if you don't get out of the vehicle and engage the people on the beach. No officers on the beach means no tickets being written. No tickets being issued means the word about not trashing the beaches is not getting out. A few tickets with fines attached to them would do wonders to wake the visitors up to the fact that they need to dispose of their trash before they leave.

Ah but that is the advantage of the stereotype placed on the visitor themselves by others as poor and ignorant and, incidentally, might be the reason why it is not frowned upon, . Litter fines would be an unfair burden on the poorer visitors to the beach. They can't afford to pay the fine so why bother. If we fine them then they won't want to come back. It sort of let's law enforcement off the hook for their laziness. Well the money issue might be a valid concern and I can certainly sympathize with that plight. How about in lieu of the fine, community service to be served at the Beach Parks be the penalty for being caught littering the beach. A few hours of being forced to pick up other people's trash on the hot beach may even be worth more than fines in stemming the tide of litter on Cameron County Beaches. Many people voluntarily clean up your trash every day because they simply can not stand it anymore.

I see a trash can! (Photo: Wade Dunkin)

Finding an empty trash can that is conveniently placed on a weekend may be an issue for you too. The trash cans are emptied once a day by the county parks public works in the morning and there is not a real effort after that to service those barrels again until the next morning. It may mean that the county public works guys may have to walk out to the barrels and remove the full liners and place empty ones in there occasionally because they can not get a vehicle on the beach due to the crowds. First of all a liner would actually have to be used as they are not currently placed in the trash barrels. It can be done. This is no way a swipe at the guys in the public works truck as they are only following instructions from their supervisors. The management is not being clear enough or proactive enough to address solutions to this problem and all of these suggestions have been brought to their attention before.

So now that I've laid the ugly truth out on the table for the entire Rio Grande Valley to read and get angry at, what can you do to change this general opinion and stereotype about YOU? While I have laid out that the trash problem in Isla Blanca is a joint problem caused by the visitors and Cameron County, the visitor who is the most visible offender will be the one blamed most of the time.

The solution is so simple my 21 month old son already understands it. Take the trash you bring to the beach with you and properly dispose of it! That does not mean put it in a bag and leave it in the parking space as you pull away to go home. Find a trash can or dumpster and throw away your trash there. It may not be right next to you. While the beach trash barrels do get full the parking lot ones are usually pretty empty. Store the trash from your beach picnic in a trash bag you bring from home, wrap it up and then dump it in a barrel in the parking lot on your way out if you have to.

Those are not seagulls in the background. (Photo: Wade Dunkin)

Please for your sake, for our beach's and ocean's sake, for the reputation of the Rio Grande Valley and the people that live, work and raise families here, take 5 minutes and clean your area of beach before you go home.

Make that derogatory label of Valley Trash a thing of the past starting the very next time you come and enjoy the beaches of Cameron County and South Padre Island.

(Photo: Wade Dunkin)

Texas Constitution: Public Beach Easement Does Roll

2011-05-24T08:28:00.000-05:00

Currently the Texas Chapters of the Surfrider Foundation anxiously and optimistically await the Texas Supreme Court opinion on the rehearing of the Severance v Patterson Open Beaches Act case that was heard on April 19th, 2011. While we wait it is important to remember that in November of 2009, Texas Voters overwhelmingly decided to enshrine their public beaches and access to those beaches within the Texas Constitution with the passage of Proposition 9.

Surfrider Foundation Prop 9 ad that ran in Texas Monthly Magazine

Proposition 9 became Section 33 of the Bill of Rights within the Texas Constitution and reads:

"ACCESS AND USE OF PUBLIC BEACHES. (a) In this section, "public beach" means a state-owned beach bordering on the seaward shore of the Gulf of Mexico, extending from mean low tide to the landward boundary of state-owned submerged land, and any larger area extending from the line of mean low tide to the line of vegetation bordering on the Gulf of Mexico to which the public has acquired a right of use or easement to or over the area by prescription or dedication or has established and retained a right by virtue of continuous right in the public under Texas common law."

Rep. Raymond

In May of 2011, District 42 State Representative Richard Raymond, author of Proposition 9, submitted his Amicus Letter in support of the state's fight to preserve the Texas Open Beaches Act as is stating that the Open Beaches act was and is firmly fixed as Texas Common Law. In the letter, Rep. Raymond correctly states that the Texas Supreme Court stated in its opinion that the Public Beaches Constitutional Amendment passed by Texas Voters had no bearing on the case since Carol Severance had filed her lawsuit prior to the passing of the amendment. Raymond disagrees.

Raymond states in his letter;

"The Court 's opinion of November 5, 2010, makes reference to the Open BeachesAmendment, but says that it is "not at issue in this case." Severance v. Patterson, Slip Op. at 8n.3. The plaintiff, whose lawsuit was filed before the amendment became law, may not have directly challenged the amendment, but the November 5th opinion of this Court certainly threatens its viability as a meaningful protection for the public rights of the people of Texas. By concluding that Texas courts will no longer recognize that the public has an easement to use the dry sand portion of Texas beaches, i f the dry sand portion has come to be on land owned privately in fee simple as a result of an "avulsive" event, this Court has hollowed out theconstitutional amendment and undermined the historically recognized rights of Texans."

Raymond goes on to say;

Stated another way, when the people of Texas voted overwhelmingly in 2009 to recognize a permanent constitutional right of access to, and use of, public beaches along the Gul f of Mexico, the common law of Texas was perfectly clear: it had adopted the concept of a rolling easement, by which the public had a continuing right to use the dry sand portion of Texas beaches, even if that dry sand portion had changed geographic location due to such events as hurricanes. This was the common law of Texas when I authored the resolution proposing the amendment, and it remained the common law of Texas through the day the people voted to enshrine the rule in our Texas Constitution.

In his conclusion in the letter, Rep. Raymond mentions that the Court itself has stated that the people of Texas depend on continuity of law and that the November 5th, 2010, decision to take the rolling easement of the Open Beaches Act away from the public had gone against these principles!

He states;

"As this Court has explained before: "Those who depend upon the law require continuity and predictability." Davis v. Davis, 521 S.W.2d 603, 608 (Tex. 1975). The Court ' s decision of November 5 th in this case clashes with this important legal principle. It is especially troubling that it does so in a way that takes from the public something they had voted, by more than a three-quarters majority, only a year before to make a permanent part of their constitutional protections."

To read the entire Amicus Letter from Representative Raymond click here.

International Surfing Day: Registration Is Open!

2011-05-17T16:36:00.000-05:00

Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter member Mundo showing a student that there is life amongst the sargassum
in between sets at International Surfing Day.

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter is stoked to announce that International Surfing Day is Monday June 20th this year!! Founded seven years ago by the Surfrider Foundation and Surfing Magazine, International Surfing Day (ISD) unites surfers from around the world in celebration of the sport of surfing. As is tradition with the annual holiday, surfers do their part to give back to our oceans, waves and beaches through various organized events such as cleanups and restoration projects hosted by the Surfrider Foundation.

Collected Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles from 2008 ISD!

To celebrate the day dedicated to educating the public about the joys of the oceans, waves and beaches and the need to preserve and protect them, we will be holding our 5th Annual Children's Surf Clinic at Isla Blanca Park!! We have had everything happen from playing with crabs and inkfish amongst sargassum in the water to having dolphins swim through the lineup to the discovery of a Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle Nest in 2008. The children and parents will become very aware that surfing places you out in the beauty and awe that is the ocean!

As of now registration is officially open to children between 4 and 14 years of age. The clinic is completely free with surfboards, a t-shirt and lunch provided to the kids.

There are two clinics on June 20th; 8:30AM-11:30AM and 12:30PM-3PM. SPACE IS LIMITED AND FIRST COME FIRST SERVED!

Students getting their first lessons.

To register your child please contact Rob Nixon at robaroo2000@gmail.com or 956-433-1472. You can also register by going by On the Beach or Island Native Surfhouse on South Padre Island. You may also register on Facebook on the event page by leaving a comment and we will get back to you! We need your children's name and age, which clinic you would prefer and a way to contact you to verify you are coming as we get closer (email is preferred). This is a popular event and we will have folks waiting for cancellations! If registering on Facebook you can private message us with your kid's info.

Parents capturing the moment their kids get their first wave!

THIS IS NOT A BABYSITTING SERVICE. We would love the parents to stick around, cheer on their kids, take pictures and even get involved! We have found that the parents, the children and the volunteers have a hard time deciding who has had more fun at the end of the day.

We are also looking for volunteers for the event!! We need instructors, registrars and lunch assistants for the clinic as well! If you are interested please contact Rob Nixon with your contact information and which clinic you would like to help with!

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter would like to thank its sponsors for this event because without them it would not be possible to put on such a great activity for the kids.

2011 Sponsors:

Island Native Surfhouse

On the Beach
Psychadeli

Si Creations

Toucan Graphics

Barefoot Wine and Surfrider South Texas Make South Padre Barefoot Friendly!

2011-05-16T21:56:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday, May 14th, 2011 the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter teamed up with Barefoot Wine for our 4th Annual Barefoot Wine Beach Rescue Project on South Padre Island! Each year Barefoot wine teams up with Surfrider Foundation Chapters around the world and help these chapters raise awareness about beach issues with beach cleanups and restorations.

This year, the South Texas Chapter once again held a dune plant harvest in order to get ready for the next round of dune restoration projects in the fall. In the fall and winter of 2011, the chapter helped the City of South Padre Island plant 46,000 bitter panicum and sea oats to help grow and stabilize dunes in gap areas in the city.

On Saturday 52 volunteers gathered to harvest bitter panicum from a lot. These plants will be propagated at the University of Texas at Brownsville's greenhouses by students over the summer and be brought back in the fall to South Padre Island.

Bitter Panicum was gathered from the vacant lot

After they were dug up, they were placed in buckets

Once bundled the plants were sent to the processing tables

The plants were cut down to just a 3-5" stub and their roots

Ready to pot!

Plants were then put in a sand and potting soil mixture


Once racked, plants were put on the trailer for shipment to UTB. 540 plants went to UTB and will be propagated into thousands!

After the harvest was done it was time to celebrate! All of the volunteers were invited to the Padre Island Brewing Company where there were complimentary wines and bubbly from Barefoot Wine and great food and craft beer from our friends at the Brew Pub! To top it all off, local musicians Raul "Junior" Valdez and John-Paul Fedigan played a live acoustic set for everyone's enjoyment!

Post-harvest refreshments anyone?

Ahhhh.....Ahi!

Junior and John-Paul rocking the party!

Up, Up And Away...NOT! The Dangers of Balloon Releases

2011-05-11T07:35:00.001-05:00

The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter is proud to announce the release of our joint educational booklet on the environmental dangers of balloon releases. We were lucky enough to be asked by Healthy Communities of Brownsville to join them, The Brownsville Herald and Sea Turtle Inc. as the major sponsors of this project that will be going out to 50,000 children through distribution in the local newspaper, elementary schools and other outlets such as the Children's Museum of Brownsville, Sea Turtle, Inc., Paragraphs on Padre Blvd. and Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge!

The South Texas Chapter would like to, once again, thank Paragraphs on Padre Blvd. for their generous financial contribution to the chapter to help with our share of the cost of printing these booklets!

The message of the story is that while you can have fun with balloons, releasing them into the sky and into the wind poses a danger to wildlife around our area including marine life such as marine birds and sea turtles. The booklet also contains educational and entertaining games for the children to undertake that will further reinforce their understanding of the issue. In addition, the booklet is in both English and Spanish!

Click on the above image for a digital version of the booklet for you and your children to enjoy!

Surfrider/Barefoot Wine Beach Rescue & Celebration

2011-05-09T08:01:00.001-05:00

Local Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter supporters and super band, Junbug will provide acoustic set for your entertainment at the Celebration!

RSVP HERE!

See y'all Saturday!

Who's Sand Is It Anyway?

2011-05-05T09:07:00.000-05:00

I attended the Cameron County Dune Protection Committee meeting yesterday and the subject of how to fix the clay beach at Isla Blanca Park was brought up. Other than the comments from the committee about not causing the US Army Corps of Engineers too much of a headache to fix the problem they created because they might not be so generous with material in the future, a solution was proposed in which the clay would be completely removed from the beach. The loss in volume of the beach could then be made up by trucking in sand that was either encroaching onto the right-of-way or actually on North Park Road 100 (Hwy 100). The idea was struck down immediately by the Committee Chair who is also a property owner in that area and often speaks for other property owners up north. The reason? According to them, it's their sand. Their sand? It's on a public highway!

I thought about this quite a bit over the course of the day. At what point does a grain of sand become the property of a platted piece of land? Does that title to that grain of sand not transfer to the next lot it gets blown to? Who sorts all of this out? I went up north to do some investigation and examined some sand. What I found was amazing. The sand grains do have labels for where they belong!

Obviously I am being facetious. Seriously though, sand on South Padre Island, especially up north where these dunes migrate across the road and over property lines on a regular basis and the beaches are eroding at rates of up to 15 feet a year, is a very highly valued commodity. So much so that property owners have sued over this. They even provide trucks for the Texas Department of Transportation to fill with the sand that is cleared off of Park Road 100. Those trucks then drive around to the seaward side of their property and redeposit the sand between the Gulf of Mexico and their lots. Lots that very soon will have homes and hotels on them and are pinched between a highway and a rapidly advancing waterline on a very narrow beach. Beach is just over 500 feet between water and highway in area currently being developed. (Hay bails and red line in pics below)

January, 2011

Same beach as above in 1995

Now it may seem selfish if not completely irrational on the part of the northern property owners to sue over sand or to jokingly tell someone they will shoot them if they try to take it, as was the case yesterday morning. However, after actually sitting down and thinking about this yesterday, I came to see why they are so aggressive in keeping that sand up in their area. It means the difference between their highly risky investments paying off or ending up in the Gulf of Mexico.

I didn't say that I agree with their decision to take the risk that created this situation but I do understand their aggressive protection of the sand in that area.