Cedar Bayou dredging on hold

Web Posted: 08/11/2007 10:13 PM CDT

Ron Henry Strait
Express-News Staff Writer

The dredging of Cedar Bayou, the natural pass between Matagorda and San Jose islands, is on hold again, said Lynn Edwards, leader of a group called Save Cedar Bayou Inc.

The project awaits approval of funding by the General Land Office that would pay for even more studies as requested by federal and state agencies, which have supported the project in the past.

The GLO already has put $250,000 toward completion of the first phase of the project. Permitting comes next.

The current effort to widen the pass has been going on for four years, and not one shovel of sand has been turned, Edwards said.

"Water exchange is the lifeblood of the bays," Edwards said, "and Cedar Bayou is the water-exchange point for a huge area of bays."

The direct beneficiaries of the water exchange are Mesquite Bay and the Lamar Peninsula region, winter home of the endangered whooping crane.

The closest water exchange to the south is at the Port Aransas Jetties, about 20 miles away.

If there is any question about the potential water exchange and benefits of having the pass open, Google photos of Cedar Bayou from the 1960s, when it was 900 feet wide and its next-door neighbor, Vinson Slough, was 1,100 feet wide. The marsh behind Vinson Slough is huge.

The Save Cedar Bayou project would open the bayou to 100 feet wide and 6 feet deep.

A dredging project permitted by Army Corps of Engineers and conducted by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department in 1995 blocked Vinson Slough and caused Cedar Bayou to clog down to its present status of 25 feet wide and 2 feet deep, Edwards said.

Very little water flows through the pass today, and about 22,000 acres of marsh behind the Vinson Slough sand dam has been converted from low ground marine nursery habitat to high ground, she said.