Posted on December 7, 2015
By Jason Johnson, Lagniappe
As photos over time indicate, Dauphin Island is eroding. Yet for decades the issues of why that erosion is occurring and how significant it is have been mired in debate.
Some have pointed to the Mobile Bay shipping channel as the culprit, which as recently as last year was the subject of contention when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers discussed plans to widen a five-mile section of the channel by 100 feet.
Ultimately, the widening project was put on hold pending the outcome of a full environmental impact study detailing its effects on the surrounding beaches and shorelines. Regardless, issues between the Corps and Dauphin Island residents go back even further, perhaps highlighted in a lawsuit filed in 2000 by the Dauphin Island Property Owners Association along with several individual property owners essentially blaming the Corps’ dredging activities for the island’s “chronic erosion.”
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