Eastern Lake opened

A permit to manage the lake was applied for prior to Hurricane Ivan on May 10, 2004. The permit was issued on September 11, 2008. Click the dates to see the files.

Thanks, BeachSiO2.
Lake View Too, the county did not just wake up one morning in the spring of 2004 and say, oh, let's go to all the time, trouble and expense of getting a permit to open Eastern Lake. They responded to people who thought the lake and its outlet ought to be managed to achieve a certain state. I've looked at your latest picture, and it is pretty. But you know, I still don't see your point in posting it. You cannot take a snapshot in time and say this is how a coastal dune lake ought to be. They don't work like that. You need to take a longer view of things and realize that over the many, many years, and that would be centuries, that the lakes have been around, they sometimes look one way and sometimes another. They may host blue crabs, or they may not. They are dynamic, changing systems.

The Lake will never bust out naturally in a robust way because of the sheer amount of sand that has acrued since hurricane Dennis. Most of the problem is that Dennis pushed a majority of the 500 cubic yards of sand barrier deposited in 2005 into the lakeside mouth of the inlet. This has caused any outbreak, whether manmade or natural , to be severely restricted, and hence, the inlet will never bust out with enough gusto to "repair" itself.

The two issues are (1) the inability of the lake to break out naturally, with enough gusto to insure saltwater backflow, has damaged the ecology of the lake drastically in the space of less than two years. (2) the inability of the lake to break out naturally has forced the DEP to establish a trigger point determined by them that they deemed the point where the lake height is affecting public safety and well being.

The people of the lake who have been working strongly toward correcting this problem feel that removing the sandbar from the mouth of the inlet, that has been obstructing the flow since Dennis, would allow it to flow better.

All of you who cry about let nature do it's thing... where were you when 500 cubic feet of sand barrier was deposited in 2005. You people are a bunch of hypocrits.

perhaps the state could buy out the lakefront hypocrites

"The interesting thing is that anytime humans attempt to correct nature they end up causing more problems." SWGB , I agree completely with your sentiment. Isn't this what happened when Worth Williams deposited the sand? Is it OK for him to "correct nature"? Listen folks, I do not remember anybody trying to get a "no notice" permit before Ivan. There was no problem as evidenced by my current photo(the day before Ivan) The simple fact is there have been no man-made sand barriers deposited in the Eastern Lake floodplain since the beginning of time and just maybe this event has caused a great big problem. Doesn't karma suggest that removing 500 cubic yards of sand might make things "right"?

Micromanaging the lake outfall is not what anybody wants, but many of us think that if we don't restore the mouth of the inlet," the lagoon" as I like to call it, to the state it was in for the 45 years before Dennis, then there will forever be problems. I certainly don't like the fact that people were allowed to build too close to the lake (some of them four decades ago, some of them just years ago) but I consider them my neighbors and I wouln't wish their homes to be undermined just because well meaning people want nature to take care of things.

Once again I will tell you to let the issue of the sand dump go. You keep going back to that and you twisted my words.

I never stated that he was entitled to correct nature. I was simply stating that perhaps we shouldn't keep trying to correct it. You've got some great pictures of the outfall as it appeared at one time. Regardless of what someone did restoring the outfall to that picture probably wouldn't leave you happy in just a couple of years as it would change. It might even fill itself in. The point here is that it is a natural formation and should not be "managed".

You also seem to speak out of both sides of your mouth. On one hand you pitch a fit that the sand dump has created an untenable problem and it was a horrible act against nature to put the sand there. Then in the same paragraph you state that opening the lake is great as some people completely ignored set backs and illegally built close to the lake. I don't care if you live on Eastern lake, Western lake, or Lake Michigan. When you build on a lake you should understand and inherit the risk that flooding is possible. To ignore that fact is just that ignorance.

A permit to manage the lake was applied for prior to Hurricane Ivan on May 10, 2004. The permit was issued on September 11, 2008. Click the dates to see the files.

I guess I was wrong about there being no problem before Ivan. I'm not denying there are people that were allowed to build too near the lake who are lobbying for this to protect their homes. I personally wish to restore the balance that was disrupted in 2005. I have never been in favor of the Trgger Point permit, but neither am I in favor of just letting the sand barrier bury the beauty of this place.

I guess I was wrong about there being no problem before Ivan. I'm not denying there are people that were allowed to build too near the lake who are lobbying for this to protect their homes. I personally wish to restore the balance that was disrupted in 2005. I have never been in favor of the Trgger Point permit, but neither am I in favor of just letting the sand barrier bury the beauty of this place.

Again you act as though the sand is concrete. It will eventually be sorted out by mother nature, but you will have to give it time it's not going to happen tomorrow.

A permit to manage the lake was applied for prior to Hurricane Ivan on May 10, 2004. The permit was issued on September 11, 2008. Click the dates to see the files.

I stand corrected. Apparently people that built too close to the lake were lobbying for the Trigger Point Permit before Ivan. I have never been in favor of the Trigger Point Permit. I simply want to restore the balance that existed before the events of 2005 so that the inlet will break out in it's own natural way. I suppose there is no way for us to achieve this anymore.

I stand corrected. Apparently people that built too close to the lake were lobbying for the Trigger Point Permit before Ivan. I have never been in favor of the Trigger Point Permit. I simply want to restore the balance that existed before the events of 2005 so that the inlet will break out in it's own natural way. I suppose there is no way for us to achieve this anymore.

You should work on reading comprehension skills.

Dang! Where the heck is my short term memory? I could have sworn I had it around here just a minute ago...

there are people that were allowed to build too near the lake

.

I personally wish to restore the balance that was disrupted in 2005.

..

but neither am I in favor of just letting the sand barrier bury the beauty of this place.

...

:scratch:

It's not wise to fool with Mother Nature!:angry: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLrTPrp-fW8"]YouTube - 70s Mother Nature *Chiffon* Margarine Commercial[/ame]

Heart

I don't have a solution to the fact that people were allowed to build too close to the lake. Some of these houses were built over four decades ago. Again, I want to stress that I don't like the trigger point permit. It seems like restoring the lagoon ( a very minor move) would let the inlet work naturally and there would not be a need for the trigger point permit.

If any of you want to petition the county and DEP to recind the permit, I wouldn't be bothered by that, but it will simply bring a wave of lawsuits.

Folks, I have loved Eastern Lake Inlet since I was seven years old. While my logic may escape you (and me sometimes) it is coming from my heart.

WIN...A blast from the past!

Yeah, Miss Kitty, "blasts from the past" used to be what I had only learned about through history but anymore they're becoming things I actually lived. Damn, I'm getting old!

Dune Lakes

They do not need to be artificially opened. Let Mother Nature take care of these beautiful waters in her own time. The human race seems to think in a few thousand years they know everything about controlling the environment , from Dune Lakes, to global warming, to sun spots.

Let us worry about fixing the potholes in roads, trash on the street, cigarette butts on sidewalks and the economy. Leave the Dune Lakes to Mother Nature.