Damn!!!

On the Sound there, not much flushing occurs.  Tides move the water back and forth, but there aren't a lot of streams flushing water out of the way.  It isn't close to a Gulf access, so tides don't bring in relatively clean Gulf water.  That old pass silted over, didn't it?

You are correct. The old cut silted over pretty quickly after it was made..  My old Boss said the water quality  started to decline. when they stopped allowing Shrimping in that area. He said the Shrimpers kept the bottom clean and helped the water flow.  Dont know.  But he might have had a point.   They sure could have pick up a lot of Ivan junk.

I have never heard that theory.  It is my opinion that shrimpers scour the bottom too much and kill critters trying to make a home on the bottom... particularly sea grasses. 

I can't express myself as well as stated in this Wikipedia quote:

Quote :

Trawling is controversial because of its environmental impacts. Because bottom trawling involves towing heavy fishing gear over the seabed, it can cause large-scale destruction on the ocean bottom, including coral shattering, damage to habitats and removal of seaweed. The primary sources of impact are the doors, which can weigh several tonnes and create furrows if dragged along the bottom, and the footrope configuration, which usually remains in contact with the bottom across the entire lower edge of the net. Depending on the configuration, the footrope may turn over large rocks or boulders, possibly dragging them along with the net, disturb or damage sessile organisms or rework and re-suspend bottom sediments. These impacts result in decreases in species diversity and ecological changes towards more opportunistic organisms. The destruction has been likened to clear-cutting in forests.

The primary dispute over trawling concerns the magnitude and duration of these impacts. Opponents argue that they are widespread, intense and long-lasting. Defenders maintain that impact is mostly limited and of low intensity compared to natural events. However, most areas with significant natural sea bottom disturbance events are in relatively shallow water. In mid to deep waters, bottoms trawlers are the only significant area-wide events.

Bottom trawling on soft bottoms also stirs up bottom sediments and loading suspended solids into the water column. One bottom trawler can put more than 10 times the amount of suspended solids pollution per hour into the water column than all the suspended solids pollution from all the sewerage, industrial, river and dredge disposal operations in Southern California combined.  These turbidity plumes can be seen on Google Earth in areas where they have high resolution offshore photos (see Bottom trawling). When the turbidity plumes from bottom trawlers are below a thermocline, the surface may not be impacted, but less visible impacts can still occur, such as persistent organic pollutant transfer into the pelagic food chain.]