Beach maintenance in a simpler time
TONY AMOS

Tony Amos is a research fellow at The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas.

At the recent Sargassum symposium in Corpus Christi we heard about various machines that would remove the weed without removing half the beach at the same time. My mind wandered back to a simpler time.

It is a little-known fact of my early adult years that I went into the mowing business. It was the 1950s on the island of Bermuda. My brother and I formed the Amos Brothers Specialty Mowing Co., Ltd. We specialized in mowing where nobody had mowed before. For the next few weeks I'll show you episodes of our exploration into the world of whacky (no-pun intended) mowing.

Our first challenge was a contract to mow the beach (Bermuda has Sargassum, too). The picture shows my brother Eric, also known as Tom, mowing Grape Bay Beach. The equipment was simple, perhaps too simple, but it was portable, fuel efficient, and inexpensive. Our endeavor failed. Next week: "Mowing the Reef."

It would have been difficult to mow Mustang Island Gulf beach over the Memorial Day weekend. In fact, it was difficult to do much on the beach due to the high water and narrow beach. ARK volunteers are doing daily patrols of the entire length of Mustang Island Gulf beach looking for nesting Kemp's ridley sea turtles. We drive the Polaris Ranger from the south jetty of the Aransas Pass Ship Channel to the Packery Channel north jetty. My turn was on Saturday, and there were times and places where the beach was almost impassable. In the late spring, high tides occur during the day here, and they remain high for most of the daylight hours.

Beach maintenance COURTESY PHOTOS BY TONY AMOS Tom Amos as part of an ill-fated beach mowing company formed by the Amos brothers in Bermuda.

The combination of these spring tides and the strong onshore winds that pile up water at the coastline created some of the skinniest beaches we've had during the long holiday weekend. Adding to the problem is the practice of scraping the weed from the shoreline and dumping piles of weed and sand at the base of the dunes: The dunes advance seaward and the shoreline erodes landward.

Narrow beach High spring tides and an influx of holiday tourists barely leave room for Tony Amos's truck in a patrol down the beach over the Memorial Day weekend.

On Saturday, waves spilled over the berm and filled the depression created by the constant grading of the driving lane with water literally to the dunes in places. Only four-wheel drive vehicles made it through long stretches of the beach and many were reluctant to try that. Ordinary cars were doomed, and I advised drivers of several sedans not to try.

I was pleased to note that the section of Port Aransas' beach south of Beach Access Road 1, where our beach managers have elected to leave the weed largely alone, fared much better than the City of Corpus Christi's beach beyond La Mirage. There, the beach was noticeably narrower still, and driving past the people trying to find a place to sit was harrowing, especially making sure that the children and their parents knew you were coming through. The picture speaks for itself.

Most of the sea level rise that is occurring now is due to the thermal expansion of the water rather than melting of ice in polar regions: Warm water occupies more space than cold water.

You may have noticed it is quite warm these days here in Port Aransas. Look at last week's weather record (Page 5B). Three days saw record high air temperatures and five days in a row we had record "high-lows". In other words, the low temperatures for those days were hotter than any previous low temperatures in the past 23 years that official records have been recorded.