ORANGE BEACH, Ala. – The City Council passed a resolution Tuesday authorizing an emergency fix for erosion on Robinson Island in Perdido Bay.

The north side of the island, according to Coastal Resources Director Phillip West, has been eroding at an alarming rate and action is needed now to stop the erosion.

“It had been a couple of months or six weeks since I’d seen it and it had gotten a lot worse,” West said. “It just looked like we’d better do something fairly quickly.”

The quick fix is to spend about $20,000 to put rocks, or rip rap, along that northern shore.

“We’re going to place per linear foot a yard of rip rap along that shoreline just to check any further as best we can,” West said.

The long-term solution may be more costly and may involve making the area a “no wake” zone.

“I think there’s boat wake issues, there’s current that may be even worse than it was in the past,” West said. “It’s going to be a tough nut to crack to get it done right with the budget we have which is about 90-grand. This project I hope will be under 20 (thousand) and maybe we can use some of that grant money to go back and do a better, more permanent, more robust job protecting that north end.”

Mayor Tony Kennon agreed that slowing boats in the area may help, but he wants to be sure the going to a no-wake zone is the right thing.

“There’s a tremendous amount of boat traffic running through that little cut there close to the island so the wake there I would think would carry a much bigger effect,” he said. “Eliminating that running north and south of the island makes sense if we want to eliminate the constant battle of erosion on that island. I just want to make sure if we ask for idle wake the justification is XYZ.”

Any more erosion make start taking down some of the oak trees on the island. The city is working with the Corps of Engineers, the state Department of Conservation and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management on solutions for the erosion.

“We had a consensus on this stage and we’re talking about the next one,” West said. “It’s a tough one now. If we can stabilize it this summer, this fall we’ll get over there with some real meaningful dialogue with the state.”

The vote for the quick fix was unanimous.

“Those three agencies along with our staff suggested that we move forward with an emergency stabilization now to save the shoreline knowing for the next month and a half of boat traffic out there, plus the current, that if we don’t, it could very well take out some of those oaks,” City Administrator Ken Grimes said. “So this will save that until we get to phase two. The grant money is ready.”

West said one solution might be dredging channel and using the sand to rebuild the eroded parts of the island.

“In talking long term and that next phase, if we manipulate where boats go, if we connect the Bayou St. John open water area to the Terry Cove open water area by a channel that we’d dredge and put that material up against that area,” he said. “That might be where we start and that way we’re in control of how far out those boats using the channel run and make that an idle wake for that stretch of a few hundred yards.”

Kennon wasn’t sure dredging is going to be the answer.

“Any dredge cut is going to fill in pretty darn quickly I would think and that would be a constant maintenance nightmare,” he said.