By T.J. Aulds
The Daily News
Published April 8, 2010

TEXAS CITY — The votes very well could have been “Hallelujah” instead of “Aye” when city commissioners unanimously approved a contract with a construction firm Wednesday night.

Nineteen months after Hurricane Ike laid waste to the Texas City Dike, reconstruction of the “Worlds largest man-made fishing pier” should begin within two weeks.

Houston-based SER Construction Partners was awarded the $4.093 million contract to repair the dike and rebuild the pier’s road that was washed away by the hurricane. The dike has been closed since the hurricane made landfall in September 2008.

Its closure has been a lightning rod of complaints of inaction against city leaders — Mayor Matt Doyle in particular — and conspiracy theories the city really did not want the dike to return. A combination of other priorities and a delay in getting federal funds to pay for the reconstruction was more at the heart of the long wait for repair work to get started, Doyle said.

Even with work slated to begin soon, the dike will remain closed for a second straight summer season. Repairs are not expected to be done until October.

That means a second consecutive year of relocating the popular Tackle Time Fishing Tournament, another summer without the ability to cast a fishing line 5 miles out into Galveston Bay without taking a boat and another fishing season without the use of the Sansom-Yarbrough boat ramp, the busiest boat ramp on the Texas Coast, according to state parks officials.

Doyle said city officials discussed possibly opening a small section of the dike while reconstruction work was under way. That option proved to be too risky as far as safety and economically because of the potential delays to construction, the mayor said.

The funds for reconstruction are limited to rebuilding the road base, shoulders and the road. There also are federal funds earmarked for the reconstruction of the First Lady Pavilion near the dike’s entrance, bollards to divide parking areas from public access areas near the dike beach and to replace trash cans.

The city will be using state grant funds from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to make repairs to the boat ramps.

That will leave the city with the task of finding funds to pay for the installation of solar-powered streetlights. Doyle said the Federal Emergency Management Agency won’t foot the bill for the lights and the city will not be running power down the length of the dike anymore.

The solar-powered lights cost about three times as much as standard roadway lights, Doyle said.

The future of the bait camps and fishing piers along the dike still is in limbo. Doyle said the city won’t provide funding for the reconstruction of Anita’s, Curl’s or the Lighted Fishing Pier, and new building codes will be too expensive for any of those businesses to return.

Doyle also warned that when the dike does reopen, users best be prepared to pay for access. The mayor said the city will start charging a per-car fee, long a hot topic in Texas City, for access to the dike as well as Skyline Drive along the hurricane protection levee.