Ronnie Moon, 70, has long history with Pleasure Island.

The Port Arthur native and Nederland resident said his mother first took him to the island when he was a boy. Following two stints in the military — he served first in the Navy, then the Air Force — he returned to South Texas for work with ExxonMobil and never left.

“I’ve been involved with that island for 42 years,” he said this week. That involvement revolves around fishing — at least 200 days a year, he said — but extends to volunteer efforts to care for the island’s well-being. He wants to be proud of the island.

He hasn’t picked up a fishing pole since April, he said this week; he fishes for speckled trout, red fish and flounder, oftentimes with his brother, Dennis. Since the spring, though, he’s been spending his time cleaning up the island, making sure the island keeps its natural beauty.

Most mornings, he says, he’s on the island by 7 and, due to the summer heat, done with picking up trash by 9:30.

He says he does it because he wants youngsters to have the same fun he’s had in nature since his youth.

“I enjoy seeing the kids out there, to get them out of the house, to get out to nature,” he said, noting that Pleasure Island offers about 12 miles of lake fishing on the levee roads. “There’s so much they could learn out there with a net and a pole.”

Keep it pristine

What they must learn, too, is to respect the environment, to be proud of their community and keep it pristine. That means no littering.

Moon says he’s worked with County Commissioner Mike Sinegal, Mayor Derrick Freeman, interim City Manager Harvey Robinson and District 2 Port Arthur Councilman Cal Jones, who represents Pleasure Island, over the last three years to keep up the island’s appearances. He said Jones has supported every effort to keep the island up.

Last year, Moon made presentations before the Commissioners’ Court and the Port Arthur City Council to encourage that grass to be cut along the long, lonely roadsides. He said after Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey the city lacked enough equipment to do the job but the county stepped in, taking almost a month to complete the demanding task.

“But they got it done,” he said. Volunteer groups helped with island cleanup.

This year, he’s asked that missing signage be replaced and asked for new emphasis on policing littering.

Barrels, signs

He wrote Jimmy R. Dike, Pleasure Island director, to ask for additional barrels to dispose of trash — more barrels might encourage the public to use them, he said — and asked that glass bottles be banned on the island.

In a June 27 letter to Dike, Moon wrote, “My wife and I have picked up literally hundreds of glass beer bottles along the North Levee Road since April of this year. Is there an ordinance restricting the use of glass in public places on the island?”

Moon said some visitors to the island litter bottles, cans, paper cups and plastic water bottles. Others, he said, light campfires on the parking lot pavement, damaging the surface.

This week, the city erected some signs cautioning visitors that alcoholic beverages and glass containers are not allowed on the island. Moon said that’s an important step toward laying down the law on the island. He said the city has promised to patrol for littering. That might help, too.

He said a regular group in five cars visits the levee road Friday nights and throws bottles, shattering them. He said he approached the group about their littering and explained that he was trying to keep the island clean.

“They sounded like they were congenial,” he said. But when he returned to the same site Sunday, they had left behind beer bottles, paper trash and plates.