Artificial Reef - Mustang Island

I love the idea....it is great!!! I am behind this all the way.

Ok Everyone !

Good News !

I just concluded a 30 presentation to Ken Ragan. Mustang Island Park Director. He is VERY interested in the project and is making contact with the TPWD'S people in Austin who manage the Near Shore Reef Development Fund and requesting they make themselves available to see a presentation on the Reef project.

Dr. Black the engineer who designed the reef is from New Zeeland. He was contact yesterday and asked when he could come to Texas to assist with the presentation.

ASR has Power Point Presentations and Video's ready to go.

We will have the TPWD and The Texas General Land Office. Nueces County Beach Managers and the Engineers from ASR will give the presentation in the next 30-60 days.

Stay Tuned !


Coastal ben

Is everyone else as stoked about ths as I am!? Good work Ben!!!

My girlfriend works for the South Jetty (Graphic Designer).....I can drop some hints about this to get some groundswell working hopefully. I am assuming you guys know that one of the writers at the South Jetty is a guy named Dan Parker, he's a local surfer and the curator of the Texas Surf Museum.....and a Port A local.

If anyone knows Dan, he would be the one to talk to. Otherwise I will just forward him this link and let him check it out for himself.

Justin

Sublime,

Yeah you can have him call me and I can give him the details..


Thx Sublime !

Ben Rutledge
361 790 9098

We now have the following attending

Noaa
Nueces County's Beach Management Comittee
TPWD Mustang Island Managing Director
Ellis Pickett Surf Riders Foundation
Ben Rahme Texas General Land Office
John Hearin ASR Engineer
And me and who ever else wants to attend ! It is a public meeting.
June 26
Texas A&M Corpus
530 pm-800pm

I will pass it along!

Hey Ben, I emailed your info to Dan @ the South Jetty yesterday. He sounded pretty interested, so you should hear from him soon I hope.

Justin

Thx Justin,

Is there a way to post pic's like jpegs on you message box...?

CB

Hey no sweat man, you are doing alot of work on this and it wasn't anything for me to talk to Dan, I'm trying to buy a board from him anyway. If there is anything I can do, just ask. Hopefully I can help see this thing to fruition.

I 've not done it myself...but....The screen where you type in responses to posts is exactly the same as the one you use to send private messages. Right below the subject line there is a button that says 'insert an image'. If you click it, it takes you to some hosting site.....I had a hard time even reading the page (it was super small for some reason on my computer....maybe yours too)., let alone trying to navigate it or make it do anything. You might have better luck than me, but it was most definitely a no go for me.

Justin

Ben,

Keep this train running full speed!! Make sure you let TPWD know that the surfers will be lining up at the gate to buy their annual memberships. They make money from gate charges but I can pretty much guarantee that they budget based on the membership sales (money they can count on). Just imagine the increased quality of Mustang Island State Park once the memberships and visitor numbers jump up. Look forward to more great news!

Rusty

I was think right along those lines too Rusty, good point. It is a guaranteed revenue producer for them, and let's face it, it is a business to a certain extent to them as well. I am really hoping this thing work out.....it will do wonders for the surfing community in this neck of the woods.

Thanks Guys !

At some point we might need to put out a cattle call of surfers to attend a meeting at which the Director of Mustang Island will be in attendance. The June 26th meeting ,although open to the public ,will not affort the public an open forum to express support.

In July another meeting is to be held. BUT I am thinking a meeting just with the TPWD needs to be obtained. I will be working on that THIS week.

If I can get him to meet with the Surfers and the Reef Engineers I will post it up.

CB

I'm in Ben....hopefully everyone else here can show there support by showing up. It would certainly not bode well for the project if it had only a few fans turn out. We need to make these people grab more chairs to seat all of us.

Hey guys! How's everyone doing this glorious Wednesday morning? I haven't posted in a while, but am keeping up with the WORD on our proposed artificial reef project. So glad to hear you've got all the right people interested and talking. You guys are doing a great job trying to make this a reality and I know the surfers in my family will appreciate your hard work and perserverance (sp?) I would like to attend the next public meeting in July and will offer my help in spreading the word if needed. In the meantime, SURF'S UP-LET'S GO!

Reef Project Update;

As promised I am posting up after attending the "envisioning the future of coastal management" meeting.

It was a good meeting. It was not in a format which yielded much of any opportunity to propose or present in detail the Mustang Island Project.

However, there were some attendees that I did have a chance to discuss the project with and they were all receptive to the concept.

"Concept" as this is yet to be proven; we have to keep it in perspective.

The Manager of Special Projects for the TPWD was there and he had positive comments on the "Concept”.

And several members of Texas A&M and The University of Texas academia also showed interest and made positive comments. One Doctor/PhD from Australia was familiar with the beach on the Gold Coast that had been expanded due to the ASR Reef.

But foremost the best contact was made with Mr. Juan Garcia State Rep for our area. He actually had heard of the project and invited me to meet him for lunch and discuss the project.

I also have a meeting Tuesday July 3rd with TPWD to further explore the project.

So it was worth attending the meeting, good contacts were made and should advance the project.

More information to follow after I meet with TPWD and Juan Garcia.


Coastal Ben

Ben,

The sun is really shining on you, buddy!! The fact that Juan Garcia invites you to lunch is the best news ever. All we need now is to have more proof that the "Concept" can work. Think of the possibilities. Mustang Island could become one of the premier state parks because of the reef break. Keep your eye on the prize, brother!

to coastal ben...

Maybe next on the agenda Ben we could try and figure out how to beat these flat spells. Maybe some sort of big fan. We could call it phase 2 of the reef project and.......

Just kidding Ben, keep up the good work buddy. But seriously, summer sucks sometimes.

JUSTIN

Thx Guys..

We will see about the Juan meeting. He has not called me , but hey maybe I'll hear from him in the next week or so..


I'll keep ya posted..


CB

jswsublime wrote:

Maybe next on the agenda Ben we could try and figure out how to beat these flat spells. Maybe some sort of big fan. We could call it phase 2 of the reef project and.......

Just kidding Ben, keep up the good work buddy. But seriously, summer sucks sometimes.

JUSTIN

Hey Dan Parker called me.

He is going to try and get something in the P.A. paper next week...

CB

nice

PORT A SURF COMPANY wrote:

nice

Chris, this must be the guy you were talking about regarding The Surf Museum ?

I thought you were talking about the guy who owns the ex surf club..

I did not like the way he tried to circumvent the no smoking ordinance. He added a few pool tables and tried to get his restaurant re-classified as a Pool Hall at which smoking is allowed..

BR

Coastal Ben wrote:

PORT A SURF COMPANY wrote:

nice

Chris, this must be the guy you were talking about regarding The Surf Museum ?

I thought you were talking about the guy who owns the ex surf club..

I did not like the way he tried to circumvent the no smoking ordinance. He added a few pool tables and tried to get his restaurant re-classified as a Pool Hall at which smoking is allowed..

BR

i was being sincere when i said nice...Dan Parker is a very nice guy..excellent to know him and have a relationship with...he is a stand up guy ,, Dan is a friend...100% good people

Yeah..seems a good guy..

I had him and the guy from T.E.S.C - mixed up..

CB

Man I am stoked that Dan is gonna run with this. I am confident it will be well written, Dan is very talented in that way. He's also a pretty good surfer, and as Chris said 100% good people. Thanks again for all your work Ben.

Justin