ARROYO CITY — The high-stress environment surrounding the crowded boat launch area at Adolph Thomae Jr. Park is about to change.
Thomae Park is the third-busiest county park behind Isla Blanca Park and the beach access areas on South Padre Island.
But among anglers with boats, Thomae ranks No. 1. County officials estimate it serves 300,000 people annually. It sits at the mouth of the Arroyo Colorado where it flows into the Laguna Madre, an area with a worldwide reputation for producing trophy redfish and trout.
It’s so busy some weekends, vehicles with boat trailers are stacked up on the sides of the access road for hundreds of yards, and entry to the park to vehicles towing boats sometimes is suspended until boats pull out.
“The additional boat ramp and parking will help alleviate some of these former issues,” county parks Director Joe Vega said. “Parking will still be limited to the total number of spaces available for truck and trailer rigs. Still, if parking reaches capacity, we will have to close the ramps down temporarily until parking opens up again.”
Vega said the new twin-ramp boat launching area and a new parking lot for vehicles with boat trailers should open the week of Oct. 16.
Earlier this week, a crew from ARRCO General Construction Group of McAllen was putting the last touches on construction on the new parking area adjacent to the new twin-ramp boat launch. Both are a hundred yards or so up the road from the current ramp site and parking.
The new boat ramp and parking lot were budgeted at around $725,000.
The unique system being put down in the new parking lot consists of circular tubes of plastic about four inches wide by four inches tall. Red and blue plastic pieces are placed inside some and lined up to define the edges of the parking spaces, and on top of it all, gravel is spread to fill the plastic tubes.
“A permeable paving system is what it’s called,” said ARRCO’s Rick Martinez, who said he has been working on the site for several months but the crew is about the wrap things up.
There will be 42 new parking spaces for vehicles with boat trailers, said Vega, who said the improvements will go a long way in alleviating pressure on a park so busy some say people are loving it to death.
“It means less time waiting to launch or load your boat, more parking availability, two additional fish cleaning stations, more linear feet of courtesy dock for boats to park, and fewer chances that the ramps will be closed as a result of full parking lots,” Vega said.
Thomae Park, which is part of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge with the property leased to the county, has already added two Americans With Disabilities Act-accessible fishing piers and an ADA-accessible children’s playground.
Vega said the county has submitted a grant application to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department which, if approved, would provide funding for new restrooms, parking lot lighting for the new boat ramp and new lighting for the old ramp and parking area.
The county also has submitted a grant application to the General Land Office CEPRA Grant Program for continued work on shoreline stabilization in the park — a never-ending issue — to help protect against shoreline erosion.
Recent Thomae Park improvements
New boat ramp
42 new parking spaces for vehicles with trailers
Shoreline stabilization work
ADA-accessible children’s playground
Two ADA-accessible public fishing piers
Busiest county parks
1. Isla Blanca Park
2. Beach access parks
3. Adolph Thomae Jr. Park
4. Andy Bowie Park
Busiest Lower Laguna Madre boat ramps
1. Adolph Thomae Jr. Park
2. Port Mansfield state ramp
3. Willacy County Navigation District ramp
