June 20, 2019 | Issue
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Inside the Moon Powder Puff A2 Owls A3 Corgi Fest A7 P.I.E A16 Live Music A18 Issue 792 The 27° 37' 0.5952'' N | 97° 13' 21.4068'' W Photo by Debbie Noble Island Free The voiceMoon of The Island since 1996 June 20, 2019 Weekly www.islandmoon.com FREE Around Port Approves The Island Design By Dale Rankin Contract for Storms before sunup followed by blast furnace days have been the story this week on our little sandbar. We’re Harbor Island rolling into the heart of the heat season and this year feels a little different. Tanker Facility We’ve always said that what happens The Port of Corpus Christi this week on The Island leaves on Sunday, but A cow stands in front of a barge left on San Jose Island by Hurricane Harvey approved a $4.8 million agreement that doesn’t seem to be the case this for final design of the Very Large year as Tuesday afternoons on the Crude Carrier port at Harbor Island. beach seems almost as crowded as PIPOA Recount Attack of the Birds! On Tuesday the board approved Saturdays. A beach drive on Monday a Service Order in the Amount of morning found plenty of sunbathers and Resignation $4,890,000 with Lloyd Engineering, and walkers. It’s sort of like the tide By Dale Rankin Inc., for “Engineering Services of late, it comes in and sort of just associated with the Final Design of hangs around. It seems like the new No sooner was a recount of the March the Harbor Island Dock and Berth normal. election for members of the Board of Directors of the Padre Isles Property Facilities Project.” The National Weather Service says Owners Association done this week In May the port approved a fifty heat indexes the next few days will be than the winner of the contested seat year lease agreement with Lone Star in the 105-115 range and the summer resigned from the board for personal Ports for the development of a crude is only beginning with the summer reasons. (See Letters to the Editor) oil export terminal on Harbor Island solstice on Friday, June 21. It may and the design contract awarded this turn out that it wasn’t the humidity Kelly McFadden took the seat for week includes two new oil docks and after all, only the heat… a three-year term on the board after the March election in which two associated handling equipment, as Laredo hits number 1 seats were open with the two top well as the dredging of berths and vote getters winning with a plurality approach areas for each of the docks Laredo has passed Los Angeles as of votes. The terms are for three and the expansion of the existing the largest trading port in the United years, but when the recount was A few weeks ago as residents of the El Constante condominiums at adjacent turning basin. States. Laredo has long been the finished this week at the request of busiest inland port in the country but the north end of Windward walked to the trash bin in the parking According to documents supplied to POA member Nita Smith who paid due to a dip in trade through L.A. lot they started getting attacked by aggressive grackles which would the port board this week, under the for the recount which was done by Laredo surpassed it in trade through swoop down from their nests high up in the palms and swat the contract Lone Star Ports will provide Pamela Hill, Election Administrator combined land, sea, and air transport. human interlopes with their wings. all necessary equipment and pipelines of San Patricio County, McFadden The staff began holding whatever they could find above their heads to to receive and handle the crude from Rip tides and lighted signs announced her resignation leaving pipelines and dock facilities to and an open seat on the seven-member ward off the birds until finally landscapers were called in to trim the We had a suggestion this week about trees and remove the bird nests. from the terminal including pipelines, board. Board President Marvin valves, sampling equipment, utility using the lighted TxDot signs over the Jones, citing the POA by-laws, said As things now stand an unsteady peace exists between the winged highways to warn people coming to attackers and their terrestrial prey, but stay tuned these grackles may tanks, pumps, vapor lines, storage, equipment, and other materials and The Island about the riptides that have PIPOA cont. on A2 not be done yet. been causing so much trouble in these supplies required to operate Harbor windy times. We put the question to Island Crude terminal. the area TxDot spokesman, here is his The final design will include: response. Sixty-five Beaches, 3700 Miles, geotechnical borings and laboratory “The Texas Department of analyses; detailed design of the dock Transportation has discussed this 5000 Nurdles platforms; dredging of the berths, approach area, and turning basin; topic several times with Kiwana When it comes to nurdles and where they wash up mooring and breasting structures; Denson, the mother of Je’Sani on Gulf beaches you might say that Jace and Sam shoreline protection; assistance Smith. It has been suggested that will stop at nothing – at least not for 3700 miles. perhaps the most effective way to with permit revisions, parking reach beachgoers would be for the Jace Tunnell, director of the Mission-Aransas improvements; passing ship and ship city or county to place electronic Reserve, and Sam Sugarek, director of water simulation studies; and mechanical portable message signs on the beach quality programs at the Nueces River Authority, and electrical design of the associated access roads. This way, the first drove over 3,700 miles in ten days, surveyed for pipelines, loading arms, and other thing beachgoers would see when nurdles at 65 beaches with over 126 surveys from handling equipment. Corpus Christi to Key West from May 19 to 28. leaving the pavement and hitting the Planning documents state the dock sand would be the rip tide message. They collected over 5,000 nurdles over the ten facilities will be able to accommodate TxDOT’s overhead digital message day period with the highest concentrations in various vessels from inland and signs are used for transportation Texas. Some of the highlights of the trip include ocean-going barges up to and purposes.” presentations at three other Reserve's around the including Very Large Crude Carrier That’s understandable. We don’t Gulf, very few nurdles on the west coast of Florida, (VLCC) ships. The scope of this know if the city or county have higher concentrations in the Florida Keys, including contract also includes preparation of lighted signs to do that but there are the Dry Tortugas, and finding nurdles along the construction contract documents for signs up along the access roads that Mississippi River under the bridge in Baton bid of the dock and berth facilities and may have helped but haven’t stopped Rouge. The maps created from citizen science likely several procurement packages the need for numerous rescues. After data and from the Nurdle Expedition data cover for long lead time materials and a statewide law banning texting while almost every accessible beach in the U.S. Gulf of equipment. The contract documents driving took effect in 2017, there has Mexico, showing where highest concentrations of for dredging and dock construction been a 6 percent drop in distracted nurdles can be found. These areas might also be are anticipated to be complete and Jace Tunnell and nurdles ready for bid in early December 2019. driving crashes but still one in five Nurdles cont. on A4 crashes involves a driver distracted by texting. Launching from the beach A little Island history We also got a question this week about whether it is legal to launch a sailboat from city beaches. We A Story of Two Fishing Holes in the Laguna Near Flour Bluff contacted the beach manager and go this response: Editor’s note: Longtime Flour surprised that you didn’t mention that Bluff commercial fisherman Bobby Kate’s Hole is a part of Deadman’s “It is all tied to safety. They must be Kimbrell sent us this note after Hole. It is my understanding that at least 50 feet from any person in the reading our Jay Gardner’s column back in the early 1930s the state dug water and must go out and come in about Kate’s Hole. It is a little piece a channel from the Humble Channel strait must sail at least past the third of Island history. near where the JFK Causeway starts break. I would prefer they would not By Bobby Kimbrell at Flour Bluff into the south end of do it in front of seawall.” Deadman’s Hole. The dredge had to Moons Here is al few lines to say hello dig what is now Kate’s Hole to be and let you know I enjoyed reading able to turn the dredge around after And a final piece of business…a your story about Kate’s Hole. I it finished the channel and exit the lady has been going into the Stripes was a commercial fisherman in area. That channel is called the State Store at SPID and SH 361 and taking the Lagoon from about 1944 until Channel. Kate’s Hole was about 100 multiple copies of the Island Moon I retired in 1999. I also met Billy feet or less in diameter to start with “to clean her windows.” Please don’t Sandifer and his wife when he first and since gill nets are 100 yards do that.