Editor ––

Beach Raking.

I grew up in Ocean City, MD. We raked the beach every day. It was beautiful. Huge crowds, great Atlantic waters, and beautiful plush sand.

An environmental group stopped the raking, allowing seaweed to build, and we watched the crowds go away to other ocean resorts. Ocean City woke up three years later and changed the law back to daily raking. The crowds returned.

Living in SPI for 17 years, I saw beautifully maintained beaches and then we were not allowed to rake. What happened? “Extreme Environmentalism!”

This included the private community known as The Shores. It is a beautiful growing community. The Shores offered to maintain their beach fronts with minimum raking (two passes) but was prevented due to current TX/SPI raking restrictions. There would be no cost to the City, State, or County to allow property owners to rake their beach fronts. The Shores just wanted nicely maintained beaches.

I consider myself environmentally friendly. I pick up trash every day while walking on our beach. Laws in many ways go too far. We have been blessed for the past few years with little seaweed (sargassum), although the "environmentalists" would never rake our beaches if they had it their way.

Common sense should always rule.

Vic Sprecher, Resident

Editor’s note: To answer an earlier question about this, IM contacted Texas A&M. Their recommendation to IM was to rake on an “as needed” basis and place the organic material in the dunes.