The dredge crew worked on the barge Friday and Saturday. They got the diesel engine started and feel it will be OK. If the electronic parts arrive early this week work will resume.
We had strong north winds on Thursday. The Porpoise carcass washed out and back on shore about 20 feet from the Phase II pier. Today the wind is again from the north and the stench is really bad. The carcass is bloated as big as a horse.
One owner called about my post about the cracks in the concrete. He felt that maybe the trash disposal trucks may be putting too much weight on the concrete. I walked the whole area and I don't think that is the case. Nearly all the cracks are in front of the 700 building. It appears the cement mix was not the same as the rest of the pours. Salt water may get into the cracks and cause the rebar to rust and expand and cause more cracks.
A serious fisherman has spent the last two evenings on the Phase I pier with three poles staked out. He was using squid for bait. I suggested that maybe an eel for bait might at least catch a gafftop. This evening he tried that and caught the biggest fish of his life. I saw the picture on his cell phone. It was a really huge Drum. He had no way to get it on the pier and let it go. He was happy and I was surprised a Drum would take an eel. I had three poles out all day with mullet on them and didn't lose a bait.
I went to see Heather at Johnson and Cate on Friday to review the Phase I bills. As usual, some of the expenses elevated my blood pressure. Justin will meet with me tomorrow to go over them. He will likely have some reasonable explanations.
Tomorrow I will receive my weekly blog stats from Google. They are always interesting to read to see how widely the blog is accessed. Recently Austin, Texas has supplanted San Antonio as the source of the greatest number of hits on the blog. I know of only one owner in Austin, but Austin is supplying about 30 hits per week.
Mr. Nava came by last week to replace window screens on some of the buildings. He has a lot more to make to cover the complex. He does them for around $20 per screen. He used to do the patio door screens for $120, but he told me that someone else is doing that now.

This article appeared in the Rockport Pilot. I checked with our insurance agent, Angie Ruddock, about it and she says we need to take this very seriously. We could be very negatively affected. Also, don't forget that today is the last day for public comment concerning Cedar Bayou. Comments can be emailed to denise.l.sloan@usace.army.mil.



Editorials
It’s time to stop windstorm fiasco
By: MIKE PROBST, Editor & Publisher
Published:
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 9:08 PM CDT
The Nueces County Republican Party sent an email over the weekend proclaiming the windstorm legislation being proposed by Insurance Committee Chairman John Smithee of Amarillo is far from dead.

A headline in the Sunday Corpus Christi Caller-Times said the legislation “looks to be dead,” but that is not the case.

The only thing which is sure is debate on the matter has only been postponed.

It is times like these we are lucky Rep. Todd Hunter is in office. The vote, as I understand it, was 4-3 against taking the bill out of committee last week. Hunter sits on that committee and is one of the “nay” votes.

If the proposed legislation, as written, were to be enacted, we could all pay windstorm insurance rates about 60 percent higher.

If you don’t want to see our rates increased dramatically I urge you to call/email the following list of lawmakers and let them know residents living in coastal areas should not bear the brunt of the windstorm insurance cost.

It may be true we are more apt to be hit by catastrophes requiring payment out of the windstorm insurance pool, but the economic impact of coastal cities on the state can’t be easily discarded.

Areas along the Texas coast are responsible for about one-third of the state’s economy, according to State Sen. Glenn Hegar.

The proposed increased rates, as well as limitations on windstorm coverage, would cripple the Texas economy because it would have a disastrous effect on the area of the state which fuels one third of the state’s economy.

The Nueces County Republican Party provided the following list of state lawmakers who should hear from us. Please call/email each of them. Let’s make sure this “killer bill” doesn’t get past the hearing stage.

• Chairman John Smithee (Amarillo)

john.smithee@house.state.tx.us

512-463-0702

• Vice Chairman Trey Martinez Fischer (San Antonio)

trey.martinezfischer@house.state.tx.us

512-463-0616

• Todd Hunter (Corpus Christi)

todd.hunter@house.state.tx.us

512-463-0672

• Joe Deshotel (Beaumont)

joe.deshotel@house.state.tx.us

512-463-0662

• Craig Eiland (Galveston)

craig.eiland@house.state.tx.us

512-463-0502

• Kelly Hancock (North Richland Hills)

kelly.hancock@house.state.tx.us

512-463-0599

• Carl Isett (Lubbock)

carl.isett@house.state.tx.us

512-463-0676

• Larry Taylor (Friendswood)

larry.taylor@house.state.tx.us

512-463-0729

• Senfronia Thompson (Houston)

senfronia.thompson@house.state.tx.us

512-463-0720

The end of the south breakwater is washed out again. We hired Marcos Domingues to repair it about three months ago. The cost was to be $14,000. He received half of the money up front and did a terrible job. I understand we still hold the last $7,000. Rob said shoreguard that he ordered has arrived and he plans to do the repairs inhouse. Personally, I would not bother to repair it. That part of the breakwater does no good, that I see. The water there is about eight feet deep and shoreguard will never hold up in that kind of depth.

The new concrete entance way is starting to crack all over. I checked the concrete area near the boat washing area and found no cracks at all. This concrete has been in place since Kontiki was built. I don't know that the cracks in the new concrete are an issue, but I would not think that they would show up so soon.

Diesel for off read use is high in sulphur and red in color. Here it is floating in the marina after the spill. The white cloths are called "diapers" and are highly absorbent and were spread on the diesel and disposed of when they became saturated.

This is the Bottlenosed Dolphin that washed up on the HEB shoreline.

A crew worked all day to raise the sunken dredge barge. The pictures show what it looked like on Monday morning and finally as the got it to the boat ramp today. Remember if you double click on the pictures, they can be enlarged. Notice the seagulls swarming over the work crew as the bottom was stirred and little fishes were everywhere. Also notice that about everyone who is here now were out spectating on the pier in the last photo. I heard some numbers tossed about, but $25,000 was mentioned several times as the cost to the company for the rescue plus the fine from the GLO for the diesel spill. I believe the plan is to bring a crane in and transport the barge to Rockport for repair and then bring it back out and continue the dredge from the marina out this time. That tow boat had a pair of four stroke 150 hp Yamahas. They did some serious pulling to get the barge over the shallow area near the end of the concrete jetties.

Today was an interesting day. The dredge barge sunk completely over
night. It is resting on the bottom of the channel. Diesel fuel was
released into the channel and marina. The emergency response unit for
oil spills of the Texas General Land Office supervised the cleanup. The
cleanup crew worked all day and there is still some more to take care
of tomorrow. I have some good photos, but I'm having technical
difficulties loading them to the blog. I should have them posted by
Wednesday. The dredge crew worked to clean up the spill as well as to
salvage what they could from the deck of the barge. I understand that a
Coast Guard barge will come in soon to try to pick up the dredge barge.
I would think that their diesel engine will not be up and running any
time soon. They say they have removed about 20% of the fill that was to
be removed. Other problems have popped up also. The settlement ponds
are not working well. The water is not draining off at the rate that
was expected. Additionally, the neighbor on the south side of the
retention ponds happens to be employed in a job involving water quality
issues. He has challenged the placement of the pond that it may cause
contamination of the ground water in his well as well as killing
vegetation on his property. We have had to drill a test well and
monitor it weekly to determine the water quality.Belaire Environmental
is handling this. This will up the cost of the project. I would think
that the location of our well near the mitigation site would indicate
that leaching on salt into the ground water would have happened long
ago if this were a problem, but you never know.
A Bottlenosed
Dolphin washed up on the HEB shoreline. I first heard about it today,
but some say they saw it yesterday which means it was not affected by
the oil spill.
I happened across Dave Schultz(former owner) downtown today. He is doing well.
Early
Thursday morning, before daylight, a vehicle went out of control at the
curve on Fulton Beach Road. They may have hit the hump over the dredge
pipe. They careened across the entrance road and into the HEB fence
taking out two posts and about 20 feet of fence. No one found the
vehicle, but the headlight was left behind.
The security cameras
were worked on on Saturday. All the cameras seem to work now with much
greater clarity. I even saw someone catch ahardhead off the pier while looking at the video Saturday evening.
While
working on my taxes I noticed that my energy bill for 2008 was $500
less than 2007 when I was with CPL. That is good, but deregulation for
Texas has resulted in much higher costs overall than before
deregulation. The Texas Legislature is addressing this in this session.
Our
bookkeeper, Heather, was out of the office ill today. I need to check
with her to review the February bills. Her statement for February shows
our expenditures were 307% of budgeted amount for the month. There must
have been some unanticipated expenses.
I have added a link for the
on site rental office to the links at the top right of the blog opening
page. Justin had not noticed, but he said he appreciated it. This last
week almost everyone was rented. I don't know that I have ever seen so
many spring breakers. It is much quieter now.
Justin says the superpier project and the crossbridge
replacement is getting closer to a construction start. For Phase One
this will mean another $2,000 plus assessment. The last $1,750
assessment may be billed separately from the monthly dues later this
month.
Two owners are trying to refinance their condo mortgages.
They are both running into problems. For one the appraisal came in at
$290,000 which is good, but the underwriters balked at the fact that no
one is bonded that handles our monies.Karra is checking with our insurance agent, Angie Ruddock
, to see if that can be handled by their company. The interest rate
difference for 30 years on $290,000 would have amounted to $94,320
savings over the life of the loan. The other owner ran into a different
problem. The bank looked at declining selling prices atKontiki and felt
that although the appraisal came in at $234,000 the falling sale prices
indicated that over the life of the loan the property value may fall
below the financed amount.
Both owners are trying to find a way to get by these obstacles.

The dredge operation resumed this morning. They tell me they will be back tomorrow and continue work even if it is a Sunday.
Scott(702) and I went out early this morning. We tried the "pipe" and found some small trout and three large Gafftops all caught on DOAs. We then went to Carlos Bay. There were boats all over the place. We drifted for almost an hour and then suddenly the trout were all around us. We put five in the box in about thirty minutes and lost some that were surely keepers. One of the other boats must have seen the activity and pulled up behind us and two guys jumped out to wade. The fun was over. We tried for another hour and did not get another bite. I had not caught a keeper trout since the middle of December. It will be good to taste trout again. Scott had tried his luck most of Monday in Aransas Bay, Tuesday around Aransas Pass, and Wednesday back in Aransas Bay. These were the first trout that he put in the box.

One person said they had a problem accessing the links that I posted earlier about Cedar Bayou. Here is the contact information.

The CORP has placed the permit online and is accepting public comment. It can be viewed toward the bottom of this page: http://www.swg.usace.army.mil/reg/pn.asp

What you can do, write your letter of support and fax it or mail it to the project manager with the CORP at:
Denise Sloan
Regulatory Branch, CESWG-PE-RB
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
P.O. Box 1229
Galveston, Texas 77553-1229
409-766-3962 Phone
409-766-3931 Fax

Re. Permit Application Number SWG-2007-00813
Save Cedar Bayou Inc.
The deadline for public comment is March 26th, 2009.

There has been some progress on the effort to dredge Cedar Bayou. The permit is now in the hands of the Corps of Engineers. They will be taking public input until the 26th of March. I think it is really important that the pass be opened. I have not had near the fishing success since the pass has been closed. Texas Parks and Wildlife had opposed the opening, but now take a neutral stance. Individual responses need to be faxed or mailed. The links below show the public input process and the plan as proposed by the Corp.

http://www.swg.usace.army.mil/reg/notice/2007-00813c.pdf

http://texassportsmen.com/

Randy(308) sent these pictures and report.

Don't know if you ever fished for the oversized drum at Ingleside, but we did that Tuesday.
My guide friend, Terry Coufal of TC Charters, took Jason, myself and grandson Colson over there, mostly for Colson's benefit.
We caught 4 big old ugglies on crab.
One was huge, maybe close to 60 pounds according to Terry.
His scale only weighs up to 45 pounds and this fish bottomed it out easily.
We caught a 40 pounder , 26 and 21 pounders.
It was a lot of fun.
He says the drum run started early this year, in January.
Usually runs from about Feb. 14th to the end of March.
You can catch 20 or more at the peak, which is past.
He had to stick their air bladders with an ice pick and revive them before release.
It was a fun trip, Colson will be talking about it for a long time to come.
The guide had offered this freebie to me after my last trip with him and I called his bluff.
Did tip him about half his normal fee.
Nothing was going on with the dredging, they would run out there now and then in the Carolina Skiff but never lowered the blade into the water.
We left last night and hit the front at 8:00pm at Tivoli
Novosad's BBQ and market is moving to Rockport from down near Aransas Pass in April.
Will occupy the old Klein's Café building.
We ate lunch there Tuesday on the way back from drum fishing.
Pretty good BBQ.

It looks as if the dredging might take a bit longer than first thought. Work continued throughout the afternoon to try to refloat and salvage the dredge. It seemed to be stabilized by about 6 pm. A boat that was labeled "tow boat" was launched and being tied onto the barge when I had to leave to return to SA for a few days. Some of my family is still there and maybe they will send me some pictures of what happened next.

Scott(702) took his boat back to Houston early in January to do some repairs. The whole center console had to come up.

The after picture looks much better. He refinished the deck to be more slip resistant. He's bringing it back Sunday evening to get it to Ben at The Boat Shop to check on a leak in the lower unit and some seepage from the engine. Scott and his family will be here the whole spring break week and he hopes to give the boat a workout.

The dredge mix of sand and water is pumped through a tube and across Fulton Beach Road. An oversized speed hump was built and the tube is under the hump.


The retention pond didn't work very well. There were two overflow tubes to allow the water to exit the first pond and enter the secondary pool. The first time the first pool filled, the levee failed. At the point the tubes went through the first pond levee the water poured through. It can be seen in the picture at the far end of the first pond.

Rob told me over a year ago that I wouldn't recognize the motel when they got finished with the improvements. I should have taken a before and after picture. What a difference. The final touch is the closing of the drainage ditch between the motel and Fulton Beach Road. Storm sewers are being put in place and drains installed above to allow the water runoff to enter the system. If we ever have another rain the system will be ready!

This is the barge being used for the hydraulic dredge. The toothy thing on the end rotates and works its way down and the sand and water are propelled through the tube and all the way across the street. There has been no work the last two days. I've heard that they are having mechanical problems.

This is the new look of our Purple Martin houses. They are even painted Kontiki colors. There are two posts with two houses each. The picture shows a male martin already checking out the situation.

Fish, fish at last! Merlin(506) and Charlie Williams went to Sailboat Pass yesterday and got their limit of reds in about an hour. Dick, John, and Don show off here their catch at Sailboat Pass today. Don is holding the biggest red because he's the one who boated this one. He said it was just over 28". They used both sealice and dead shrimp, but had all their luck on the shrimp. Merlin said that sealice worked best for them.
The channel dredging started yesterday and the crew feels that they will be finished in two and one half weeks.

The dredge operation will likely begin early next week. Last week was spent building a large retention pond across the street. The water and sand will be pumped across the street and allowed to separate and settle. There are two ponds. The second appears to be for water run off after the sand has settled. The picture shows the flexible tube connected across the marina and up to the road. It will be connected when dredging starts and traffic will be impacted on Fulton Beach Road. Road signs are already in place. With the floating tube across the marina, I don't see how any boat traffic will be able to leave the marina.

This picture shows the type of decay that we sometimes experience in our foundation piers. This post under the corner of 301 was augmented with several new posts last week as can be seen on the right of the rotted one. In the mid 1990s we won a lawsuit concerning the issue of the foundation posts not being sufficiently treated when the buildings were put up. The piers that were found to be rotted were replaced with concrete posts. I have always advocated for a program to periodically check the remaining posts so that they can be replaced before they deteriorate to the condition of the one in this photo. Generally they rot from the inside out and early detection depends on drilling a hole into the post to check the core.
Last Sunday someone used bolt cutters to cut the steel cable that HEB had installed between the posts at the boundary of their beach front. This has happened several times in the past. I think this is so juvenile, but I guess at least one of our owners believes we should have unabated access to the HEB beach.
Oyster Fest begins its 30 rendition this coming Thursday.
The high winds this weekend drove the water out of the bay and the tide is about as low as it has been all winter.
A number of guests fished off the pier and off the bulkhead this weekend. There were no reports of anyone catching a keeper anything.