Looks Can Be Deceiving... Galveston's beach waters sometimes APPEAR dirty primarily due to several reasons while (similar to most U.S. beaches, they're not "mountain spring pure"), polution is NOT one of them... Here ARE the reasons as I understand them; 1) The Galveston beach shelf is shallow and the sands are easily churned - especially if the winds are blowing from a certain direction, though I honestly can't remember which direction that is. 2) Sometimes when the currents are being influenced from an easterly direction, they can and do pick up silt the Mississipi deltas Gulf. 3) Beach Errosion... 2/3 of Galveston Island is erroding. Some areas along the "sea wall" (and especially on the western end less in habited end of the island, at quite an alarming rate). There are many many days that the beaches and ocean waters are absolutely beautiful. Being a former 12 year beach area resident of Fort Lauderdale, Florida... While I love the beaches there too, I can tell you that getting oil and gas stains on your clothing or feet were common place from their beaches, and that they too have days that the beaches are not all that pretty. I also remember many days when particular beaches were closed due to polution, sea lice, etc.. Interestingly, during my 2+ of living on Galveston Island, I have never heard of any beach closed here for any polution related reasons. I'd almost rather people believed the beaches here were awful, however the multitudes of multi million dollar condo beachfront condo and residential developments, and multiple articles in the NY Times, Fortune Magazine, etc.. tend to lead me to believe that the Galveston secret is already out. As for the crime... yep, there's a PETTY crime problem and a few wanna be teen gangs that tend to come from some of the islands lower income residents, which statistically due to the island's growth are being forced off of the island a rate of about 2,000 families per year. Does anyone remember how dangerous and blighted Key West, Florida was in many of its neighborhoods about 15 years ago? It was pretty rough when you got off the tourist track.
Bp | Galveston, TX | Report Abuse