As forwarded by Dave Hayward with Swan Point Landing
As you and most folks who fish the Port Aransas/ Aransas Pass/ Rockport area know, a private company was granted a lease by the Texas General Land Office (GLO), and later a “Letter of Permission” from the Corps of Engineers (USACE) to construct a mile-and-a-half long barge fleeting facility in Lydia Ann Channel, directly across from the Lighthouse.
The project has displaced recreational use of that shoreline, created a hazard to navigation and poses a very real threat of devastating environmental and economic impact on a sensitive area in the event of a spill. Those of us who have boated and fished this water our whole lives know that the Lydia Ann Channel is the main tidal connection between the Redfish and Aransas Bay Systems and the Gulf. An incredible amount of water funnels through the channel. It serves as an important migratory route for baitfish, gamefish, shrimp and other wildlife. A swift incoming tide and stiff wind will push any spill, along with the inevitable runoff, from the facility into these bays within minutes, without possibility of control. It would destroy fishing in the Lighthouse Lakes, Redfish Bay, Aransas Bay and St. Jo.
As a result, concerned citizens and fishermen formed a non-profit “Friends of Lydia Ann Channel”, and filed a lawsuit against USACE in December 2015 challenging the improper granting of a ‘Letter of Permission’, without any environmental studies or public comment. The issuance of a Letter of Permission for a project of this scale, located in an environmentally sensitive area, inside the Redfish Bay State Scientific Area, was wholly inappropriate. A Letter of Permission is an abbreviated permitting process which, by law, is reserved for situations where “the proposed work would be minor, would not have significant individual or cumulative impacts on environmental values, and should encounter no appreciable opposition”. The company and the government essentially took a short cut on the permitting process, and the result is the eyesore on one of our favorite pieces of water that threatens to ruin our fishery.
The Texas Observer recently published a pretty good piece on the issue: https://www.texasobserver.org/port-aransas-barge-lydia-ann-controversy/
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We collected a variety of species including some large mouth bass, check out this nice specimen being displayed by Alice Best, fishery biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Inland Fisheries Department. We also saw Sunfish, Shad, Tilapia, Carp and Armored Catfish.
