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  • Texas City Dike news

    Cleanup begins at dike

    By T.J. Aulds
    The Daily News
    Published October 16, 2008

    TEXAS CITY — Heavy trucks and backhoes converged Wednesday on the Texas City Dike on for what will be an extensive — and drawn out — cleanup. Before anglers and recreational boaters get any ideas of seeing the dike back in business anytime soon, the city’s mayor has a warning.

    “People do not need to be going down there,” Mayor Matt Doyle said. “It’s just a big mess and dangerous.”

    Hurricane Ike ravaged the 5-mile-long dike that the city dubbed “The World’s Largest Man-Made Fishing Pier.” Every bait camp and fishing pier was destroyed, the road has been washed out in several spots, and the beach area on the dike’s north shore was devastated by the hurricane.

    But for the emphasis on its recreational uses, the dike’s main job is to protect the Texas City ship channel.

    “It performed exactly the way it was supposed to,” Doyle said of the dike’s ability to protect the shipping lanes in and out of the Texas City industrial complex.

    When the dike is able to resume as a recreational spot, however, is anyone’s guess. Doyle said the city is committed to reopening the dike, but no time line has been set for that.

    “Right now, we are going to clean up and then assess what we have to do next,” Doyle said.

    Cleanup won’t be cheap. It’s estimated debris pickup and removal will top $2 million for the dike.

    That is close to what it cost to clear debris for the entire city, Doyle said. Texas City received federal approval to get reimbursed for the cleanup Monday.

    Making the dike functional again, though, will require more than surface debris removal.

    Doyle described the amount of debris under the waters of the dike, especially along the north side, as “enormous.”

    “That’s the only word I can use, because that’s the word the contractor used when he conducted (sonar) sounding of the debris in the water,” Doyle said.

    The underwater debris field stretches at least 500 feet out and runs almost 2 1/2 miles along the dike’s north side. Much of the debris is what’s left of the bait camps and piers that once on the dike.

    Anita’s Bait Camp, Curl’s, the Lighted Fishing Pier, as well as the First Lady Pavilion, were all destroyed by Ike’s storm surge. The same goes for all of the fishing piers, as well as the fish shack used by the Texas City-La Marque Jaycees for the group’s annual Tackle Time fishing tournament each summer.

    Doyle said he hoped to make enough progress to open at least a small portion of the dike by the end of the month. That would allow access to a boat ramp on the dike’s north side near where it connects with the hurricane levee.

    That is welcomed news to the owners of Boyd’s One Stop and TC’s Bait Shop, the only two dike area bait shops to have survived Ike because both are inside the protection of the levee.

    “Eighty percent of our business is of off the dike,” said Robert Best, who owns TC’s. “We are trying to hang in there, but it’s been tough.”

    Opening at least a portion of the dike by November would be crucial, Best said, because that marks the start of the flounder run in Galveston Bay. He compared that fishing time for his bait camp to Christmas season for retailers.

    “That flounder season is our big moneymaker,” he said.

    Without the reopening of at least a small portion of the dike, Best said he isn’t sure of the future.

    “I don’t believe we can make it (without the dike opening soon),” he said.

    Jason Cogburn, who owns Boyd’s, echoed Best’s sentiments. But he noted that even without the dike being open, word-of-mouth that his business opened its doors has some customers stopping by.

    Still.

    “It’s nowhere near what we would usually be doing,” he said.

    Cogburn said with a partially opened dike, he could survive through the winter months, which are traditionally slow months anyway.

    “That would give the city time to get the rest of the dike fixed and cleaned up,” he said.

    Even after that, the dike won’t be the same, however, Doyle said.

    For years, it had been bandied about to develop the dike into a Kemah-like waterfront entertainment area. Those ideas are now out the window, Doyle said.

    “I couldn’t in good conscious, knowing that anything built out there could be wiped out in a day, support spending tax dollars on developing the dike in that way,” he said.

    The future of those businesses that had operated on the dike is also in doubt. All had to lease the property from the city, and any rebuilding effort would have to be done under what will almost assuredly be far stricter building codes.

    “I am not so sure any of them will be back,” Doyle said.

    The destruction along the dike will also likely mean that once it is reopened, the city will be charging for access. Doyle said the cost to maintain and cleanup the dike will be too great to use tax dollars to pay for it.
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