Texas Supreme Court Modifies Open Beaches Act

So when Hurricane Rita hit the beaches in Galveston, tearing them up one side and down the other, eroding the coastline to the extent that beach front private property became public lands according to the Open Beaches Act, people got distraught. They even tried to plant salt grass on the beaches to reclaim their property.

Grass that promptly died because they were too close to the ocean.

So they filed suit to regain their property, this despite the fact that it is right in there on their deeds that there could be no guarantee that the property that they bought would remain in their hands. It seems that there are rules you follow, and rules that you can ignore.

It’s Texas, after all.

So today the Texas State Supreme Court – nine Republican justices, ruled that these unfortunate property owners were perfectly correct in objecting to the loss of property, and awarded them their original property lines, lines that now extend onto public beaches.

The thing is this: the barrier island system on the Gulf Coast is slowly receding. Has been since the end of the Ice Age 10 thousand years ago. As sea level has risen, as it continues to do courtesy of the man-made greenhouse effect, the beaches on our barrier island system have receded. Soon, these property owners will come to realize that there are two definitions to the concept of a house being “under water.”

In short, what the Supreme Court just did was to codify into law the habit of selling land to people sight unseen as they did in the 1920’s in the Florida land boom. Land that was literally, under water.

Saving Trees for Dunes Day

You learn something new every day. For instance, up until today I didn’t know that we are now preserving sand dunes on our barrier islands with used Christmas trees.

Odd but true as revealed in this Houston Chronicle piece.

“For more than two decades, volunteers have staked down Christmas trees in a long horizontal line, trunk to trunk and crown to crown. After a few weeks, blown sand collects around the trees, anchoring them to the area and beginning the sand dune process. It's a fairly common practice along American coastlines.”

In neighboring Brazoria County, it seems that while Hurricane Ike was blowing my backyard fence over, it was also ripping up the Christmas tree-anchored sand dunes on Quintana Beach.

The sand dunes are a barrier islands natural line of defense against wave erosion, something that has become a problem in the past few decades, and something that will be of increased concern as ice melts and sea level rises.

They need 1000 trees to anchor one mile of beach, and they have 21 miles of beach dunes to build. So you do the math. The paltry 263 orphan trees that WalMart didn’t sell so were donated to the “Dunes Day” project won’t make a dent in the effort.

It will again, be up to individuals with the spirit of public service to come up with the difference.

Want to help out? After your tree comes down in the next week, take it down to Pearland and drop it off at the Pearland Recycling Center at 5800 Magnolia in Pearland. Best to call them for directions, though. The center is new and not reliable yet on Google Maps and Mapquest.