Photo: Photos By John Goodspeed /For The Express-News
Dozens of brown pelicans, seagulls and black skimmers at the mouth of Cedar Bayou tell the success story of the dredging operation, which reopened the natural pass now brimming with food for the birds and sport
... more
ROCKPORT — With his father and uncle in the fishing business, Aransas County native C.H. “Burt” Mills spent the first 19 years of his life angling in the bays of the area.
One of his favorite places was Cedar Bayou, a natural tidal inlet to Mesquite Bay and the only one from the Gulf of Mexico for nearly 60 miles.
“Fishing everywhere in the bays in my younger days was good, but on certain days of the year at Cedar Bayou, you could take a dip net and get all the shrimp you wanted,” Mills said. “Trout were all over the place, and in less than an hour you could gig a limit of flounder and catch all the crabs you wanted.
“I saw redfish swimming through so thick with their backs out of the water that it looked like you might walk across on their backs.”
While Cedar Bayou closed and reopened naturally over the years, man overcame nature and sealed it off for good in 1979 to prevent the chance of an ecological disaster after the Ixtoc I Oil spill off the coast of Mexico.
The closure prevented the flow of water in and out of Mesquite Bay and broke the food chain, harming the habitat and the fishery.
In 2008, Mills, the county judge of Aransas County, became involved in an ongoing effort to reopen Cedar Bayou. In September 2014, Mills manned an excavator to remove the last bucket of sand in the $9.4 million restoration project funded by the county, state and federal grants, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and conservation organizations including CCA Texas, which contributed $1.6 million.
MORE INFORMATION
Data bank:
Cedar Bayou
What: A natural inlet northeast of Rockport/Fulton — the only one for nearly 60 miles — that connects Mesquite Bay with the Gulf of Mexico between St. Joseph’s and Matagorda islands.
Closed: 1979, to prevent possible contamination in the bays from the Ixtoc I oil spill off the coast of Mexico.
Reopened: September 2014
Impact: Aquatic and avian wildlife are booming.
Re-dredging: Possible every seven years, plus or minus two years, at a cost of $2.5 million to $3 million.
How to help: Contribute to Aransas County Cedar Bayou Maintenance Fund — Address: County Judge, 301. N. Live Oak St., Rockport, Texas, 78382
John Goodspeed
It didn’t take long to rebound.
Within two weeks, juvenile redfish were found in Mesquite Bay.
Cedar Bayou is on its way back to the good old days, with plenty of baby blue crabs, forage and sport fish and the return to great angling.
“I saw it in its prime, I’ve seen it dead, and now I’m seeing it come back to life,” Mills said. “In a year and a half, it’s done remarkably well, and what it’s done for the bay system is unbelievable. The fish population is enormous — trout, redfish and flounder — and Mesquite Bay was almost dead.
“The crab population was almost zilch, and people are catching crabs all over the place. Before Cedar Bayou opened, there weren’t any birds because there wasn’t anything to eat. Now look at them all.”
To ensure it stays that way in case another dredging is needed in the future — at a cost of $2.5 million to $3 million — Mills started the Aransas County Cedar Bayou Maintenance Fund, which is seeking to raise $500,000 a year.
The county is trying to set aside $250,000 a year, with matching funds up to $1 million through the Sid W. Richardson Foundation set up through TP&W.
So far, Aransas County has contributed nearly $500,000, but Mills wants the public involved, too.
“If somebody wants to help keep Cedar Bayou open, they can donate $10, $15 or whatever,” he said. “Just write a check to the fund (see address in data bank fact box), and it can only be used for that.”
The probability of future dredging, based on historical closings and openings of Cedar Bayou, is every seven years plus or minus two years, said Aaron Horine, the senior coastal engineer with Coast & Harbor Engineering, the project manager for Cedar Bayou and Vinson Slough, which feeds into it and also was dredged.
“Those estimates can be greatly extended or reduced if a hurricane comes in,” Horine said. “Depending on where a hurricane lands, it could be silted in right then. If it passes to the south, probably the worst scenario, it would have the waves. If it passes to the north, with the circulation coming out of Cedar Bayou, it may open up even more. We’ve seen that historically.”
One of the biggest success stories is that seagrass increased by three acres and tidal sand flats grew by 35 acres, extending habitat that supports aquatic wildlife and birds including the endangered piping plover, he said.
More good news comes with the development of a delta from sediment deposited at the mouth of Cedar Bayou that extends about 1,600 feet along the beach and some 1,000 feet into the Gulf.
“It creates shallow water where waves break and dissipate their energy,” Horine said. “Instead of waves going into the mouth, breaking there and bringing sediment into the inner area of Cedar Bayou, these waves are breaking offshore on the delta.”
The mouth continues to move back to the northeast, where the original cut was, as the system begins to reach equilibrium, he said.
While Mills has yet to return to fish, he visits by boat occasionally, and friends with airplanes fly over and send him photographs.
“Now I have more pictures of Cedar Bayou than of my kids and grandkids,” he said
