PORT MANSFIELD — Willacy County’s oldest public fishing pier is getting a facelift.
County commissioners have approved $6,500 to repair the pier damaged in an April storm.
Contractor Chris Lund said he plans to repair about 40 feet of the pier whose frame was broken amid high winds and rough waters.
Meanwhile, frayed planks will be replaced along the nearly 500-foot pier, said Lund, of L&M Homes in Port Mansfield.
“There are a lot of wear-and-tear boards,” he said.
Lund said repairs will take about a week.
“The longer it takes to fix, the worse it’s going to be,” he said.
Amos Prado, the county’s code enforcement officer, said he closed the pier after the storm.
But that hasn’t kept anglers from fishing one of the best spots for redfish, flounder and trout on the Texas coast.
“It’s pretty hard to drive them off,” said Lund, who has fished in the area for much of his life. “Fish drive them crazy.”
County officials have bigger plans for one of the county’s most popular parks.
For years, the park’s pier and restrooms have fallen into disrepair.
So in April, county commissioners applied for a $686,610 grant under the Restore Act to try to revive the park.
The Restore Act was funded through penalties paid by oil companies found responsible for the April 2010 wellhead explosion off the Louisiana coast that led to the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
The county plans to build a 630-foot fishing pier, restrooms and a parking lot at the park on the northern edge of this fishing village.
Plans call for non-degradable material to build the park’s proposed pier, said Oralia Cardenas, a grant writer with GrantWorks in Austin.
The improvements would draw more anglers to the park that has long been a favorite family picnic spot, said John Sterling, vice president of the Port Mansfield Chamber of Commerce.
Cardenas said officials will announce whether the county won the grant late this year or early next year.
