Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 5, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, December 12, 1975 Page: 2 of 8
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PAGE 2
SOUTH JETTY
DECEMBER 12, 1975
Love while you’ve got
love to give.
Live while you’ve got
life to live.
The South Jetty extends
Season’s Greetings to all
in this Holiday Season
THE
NATURAL
SYSTEM
SHORT SUBJECTS
Reprinted from Questions About
the Oceans, by Harold W. Du-
bach and Robert W. Taber, Na-
tional Oceanographic Data Cen-
ter Publication G-13.
HOW DEEP IN THE OCEAN
CAN ONE SEE WITH
NATURAL SUNLIGHT?
Even when perfectly jcleax,
water is at least a thousand
times more opaque than air, be-
cause of the density difference.
The depth to which one can see
in the ocean is dependent on the
amount of suspended matter
and the angle of sunlight. Un-
derwater visibility is best at
noon when the sun is directly
overhead; at that time about
98 percent of the light pene-
trates the sea surface. When the
sun is at an angle of 10 degrees
above the horizon, only 65 per-
cent of the light penetrates; the
rest is reflected.
Tropical waters usually have
high transparency; the Medi-
terranean Sea, particularly the
eastern section, is also noted for
its good transparency character-
istics.
As a diver descends into the
ocean, the first change he no-
tices is that everything appears
to be blue-green; when he ap-
proaches the 100-foot level, it
becomes impossible to distin-
guish colors. Light appears to
come from all directions and
there are no shadows. Cousteau
reports that at 300 meters the
pale blue lighting is hardly suf-
ficient to define the shapes of
objects a short distance away.
Sometimes horizontal visibil-
ity is better at greater depths
because of the higher amounts
of suspended materials in sur-
face waters. Italian divers work-
ing on the liner EGYPT south-
west of Brest, France, reported
that visibility diminished as
they went to a depth of 66 feet,
then improved. Light faded as
they reached the wreck at 396
feet; at that depth, visibility
was 6 feet.
HOW MUCH POWER
(ENERGY) IS IN A WAVE?
The kinetic energy in waves
is tremendous. A 4-foot 10-sec-
ond wave striking a coast ex-
pends more than 35,000 horse-
power per mile of coast.
The power of waves can best
be visualized by viewing the
damage they cause. On the coast
of Scotland, a block of cemented
stone weighing 1,350 tons was
broken loose and moved by
waves. Five years later the re-
placement pier, weighing 2,600
tons, was carried away. Engi-
neers have measured the force
of breakers along this coast of
Scotland at 6,000 pounds per
square foot.
Off the coast of Oregon, the
roof of a lighthouse 91 feet a-
bove low water was damaged by
a rock weighing 135 pounds.
An attempt has been made to
harness the energy of waves
along the Algerian coast. Waves
are funneled through a V-shaped
concrete structure into a reser-
voir. The water flowing out of
the reservoir operates a turbine
which generates power.
HOW FAST CAN A POR-
POISE SWIM? IS IT THE
FASTEST SWIMMER?
Most porpoises can swim 17
to 23 miles per hour for short
periods, although, to an observ-
er aboard a ship, they may ap-
pear to be traveling much fast-
er. There are records of por-
poises being observed at 40 to
43 miles per hour, but they were
swimming before a ship, utiliz-
ing the bow wave for extra
speed.
Much research has been done
to discover just how the por-
poise is able to accomplish its
high swimming speed- Either
it is a much more powerful
swimmer than expected, or it
modifies its shape and, there-
fore, reduces hydrodynamic
drag. The question is yet un-
solved.
Although the porpoise is a
very fast swimmer, it is not the
fastest sea animal. Marlin, bo-
nito, and albacore have been re-
ported to swim at speeds of 40
to 50 miles per hour. The sail-
fish and swordfish have attain-
ed speeds of 60 miles per hour.
Public Shuns Council’s OUTDOORS 'n things
Ferry Traffic Plan by L D NUCKLES, Information and Education Officer
AN UNUSUAL VIEW OF THE PORT ARANSAS WATER-
FRONT FROM BACK IN THE ’30’s
CONTRACT SIGNED FOR
ISLAND WATER LOOP
The Directors of the local Wa-
ter District, last week, signed
a contract with Flato Corpora-
tion that will result in construc-
tion of a water line on Mustang
Island that will tie the Island
water system to an additional
source on the north end of
Padre Island where the City of
Corpus Christi supplies water
to that island.
ttt ASSOCIATION
Steven Frishman, Owner and
Publisher.
SOUTH JETTY is published
every other Friday by the
South Jetty Publishing Co.,
Port Aransas, Texas. Subscrip-
tion rate is $7.00 per year; and
$13.00 for 2 years, including
tax. 15 cents by the single copy.
Editors — Lexa and Steven
Frishman.
Managing Editor —
Loree Hamrick
Subscription Manager —
Lynn Tinnin
Address all correspondence to
South Jetty Publshing Co.,
P. O. Box 1116
Port Aransas, Texas 78373.
Office: 222 East Beach St.,
Port Aransas, Texas, Phone
749-6377.
All written material anl pho-
tographs will be published sub-
ject to review by the editors.
The publisher will gladly cor-
rect any erroneous statement
regarding corporations, firms,
or individual, when called to
his attenton. ,
Second Class Postage is paid
at Port Aransas, Texas.
The contract will result in
Flato paying $1.35 million to
the Water District as its share
of a line, that, with local tax-
payer bond participation will re-
sult in 7.2 million gallons of
water per day being available
to the District water users. The
2700-acre area of Flato’s prop-
erty will be entitled to a 3.2
million gallon share of the wa-
ter. Without a bond issue, which
the District will soon seek from
the voters, a system with
enough capacity to serve the
Flato property only will be built.
The present source of the Dis-
trict’s water is from the San
Patricio Water District, with
water being piped from Aran-
sas Pass, across Redfish Bay,
Harbor Island and the Ship
Channel. The delivery capacity
of system in its present condi-
tion is about 1.5 million gallons
per day. Peak use last summer
was about 1.3 million gallons,
with 13 days in July recording
usage over 1 million gallons. The
District’s staff and engineer, in
a public hearing prior to the
contract signing, said that pres-
ent growth rates and the near
capacity use of the system indi-
cate that unless something is
done, there will probably be wr-
ter shortages in the District in
1977. They agree that looping
the system, and developing two
sources is the most desirable
means of providing a large, and
dependable source of water to
the District.
Texas Parks 3C Wildlife Department
Last week’s public hearing
on the City Council’s proposal
to route all traffic to the ferry
along the Cut-Off Road, rather
than allowing use of Cotter
Ave., resulted in a unanimous
poll of the some 50 citizens pres-
ent indicating that the present
traffic flow should be main-
tained, and the council’s pro-
posal should be discarded.
In the hour-long hearing, all
comments from the floor were
critical of the plan, though
there was little reference to a
letter circulated earlier to local
citizens urging that the coun-
cil’s proposal be killed because
it would tend to route visitor
traffic away from the main re-
tail section of the City.
When it became evident that
the plan was doomed at the
hearing, councilman Leonard
Brown, chairing the meeting in
place of the mayor who was at-
tending another meeting, com-
mented that he had received
four or five phone calls favor-
ing the plan, but those propon-
ents “had stayed home to stay
out of the hassle.”
Discussion in the hearing
turned to means of speeding up
the ferry crossing as a solution
to the problem of occasional
long lines of vehicles waiting to
board the boats. Alternatives of
more ferries, more ramps and
larger ferries were discussed by
Melvin Littleton, Highway De-
partment ferry director, and B.
E. McCall, also of the State
Highway Department. Little-
ton’s conclusion was that larger
ferries, on the short crossing,
would be no more efficient than
Hi a nrpqpnt 9 par boats, and that
it is not likely that the State
will fund, in the near future,
additional ramps or boats, as a
result of the Department’s tight
money situation.
The council, at
of the hearing,
The new coastal fisheries pro
gram of the Texas Parks and
Wildlife Department is really
“off and running” according to
E. G. Simmons, director of
coastal fisheries field opera-
tions.
Simmons said that the little
redfish recently stocked in
Sunset Lake near Corpus Christi
and in diked-off areas that join
Sabine Lake are doing fine.
Those on the upper coast seem
to be doing so well that samples
seined up by biologists are al-
most as broad as they are long.
The winter sampling pro-
gram is off to a good start and
already appears to be produc-
ing usable data. This is a long-
range program designed to show
trends in bay fish populations.
It will not give numbers of fish
per acre, but will show percent-
ages of rise or fall in the num-
bers of individual species as
compared with other years.
The sampling program will
also furnish data on the effec-
tiveness of different types of
fishing gear. Some of the in-
formation already obtained,
when used in conjunction with
the results of creel census,
seems to indicate that if cer-
tain types and sizes of nets
were authorized the commercial
fisherman and the sports fish-
erman would be harvesting com-
pletely different segments of
the fish populations.
Work is moving briskly for-
ward on plans to spawn flound-
er in captivity. Biologists be-
lieve that this may present more
problems than were encountered
in similar work with trout and
redfish.
agreed to drop the matter of
to reroute traffic
Dr. Connie Arnold, director
of the National Marine Fish-
eries Resources Laboratory in
Port Aransas, will be working
with a combination of amount
and duration of light and water
temperatures. TP&WD inland
fisheries biologists will be work-
ing with Dr. Arnold on this
method that proved so success-
ful in the spawning of trout and
redfish.
TP&WD coastal biologists at
Palacios will be working with
harmone injections, a method
that was, to a limited degree,
successful with redfish and
trout.
A great deal of experimental
work is being done with plant-
ing black mangroves. Both
transplanted young plants and
seeds are being used. When
growing techniques have been
worked out such plantings will
be used to stabilize bare spoil
banks and islands and crate bet-
ter habitat. Underwater plant-
ings of marine grasses will also
be used.
Many observers believe that
Texas now has the most com-
prehensive coastal fisheries
plan that has ever been develop-
ed for our bay and Gulf waters.
P&WD officials are well pleased
with the progress being made.
PORT ARANSAS
TIDE TABLE
and FISHERMAN
INFORMATION
Page 8
the conclusion
their proposal
unofficially i to the ferry landing.
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Frishman, Steve & Frishman, Lexa. Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 5, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, December 12, 1975, newspaper, December 12, 1975; Port Aransas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth623883/m1/2/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Ellis Memorial Library.