THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 12, 1995 TAG: 9511120121
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OREGON INLET LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Mother Nature won.
For more than 40 years, workers have been battling the sand and sea in an ongoing effort to keep a clear channel through the Outer Banks to the Atlantic Ocean.
In September, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a $2.1 million contract to dredge Oregon Inlet. Plans called for a Maryland-based company to dig the channel to an average depth of 14 feet. The project was scheduled to be completed last month.
But this weekend - after finishing less than one-third of the work - the dredge crew began pulling up their pipeline.
The same weather and ocean floor conditions that led watermen to label the passage ``The East Coast's Most Dangerous Inlet'' have chased away workers scheduled to clear the channel.
Hundreds of anglers will have to continue waiting for a safe passage to offshore fishing grounds.
``We've been bouncing around out there now going on two months. We came in and went out so many times, we just gave up,'' George Daniels, superintendent of Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co.'s Outer Banks operations, said Friday as chest-high waves washed around his equipment.
``You gotta wait on the weather at Oregon Inlet,'' Daniels said. ``But we just can't stand up to 12-foot seas all the time. Mother Nature just wouldn't let us work. So we're pulling out.''
Since Sept. 18, when the dredge company began laying pipe through which to pump the displaced sand, crews have been able to spend only four days dredging the channel, Daniels said. The company removed 87,000 cubic yards of sediment - clearing a 200-foot-wide path about 2,500 feet long. The average depth has been increased from nine to 13 feet.
Great Lakes' contract called for removing 250,000 cubic yards of sediment from the channel.
The Corps of Engineers is in the process of contacting another company to finish the work.
Daniels said a hopper dredge will be brought in to do the job. A hopper dredge stores sand on a barge, then takes it to shore to dump it.
``That hopper's got to hurry. They're supposed to be finished out there by Dec. 1,'' said Wanchese fisherman Moon Tillett, who serves on Dare County's Oregon Inlet and Waterways Commission.
``This whole thing is very disappointing. It's one of the worst things I've ever seen anyone do to us,'' Tillett said. ``I call it a screw-up. People just don't realize what we've got to work with out there. They didn't even dig enough yards to do no good.
``I can understand, with all the hurricanes and storms, when they couldn't work back then. But I can't see why they didn't work when it was pretty out. They just gave up,'' said Tillett.
``This is as bad as it could be.''
Oregon Inlet lies between Nags Head and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and is the primary passage for commercial and recreational fishing boats based along the northern Outer Banks. But in recent years, the channel has shoaled so much that deep-draw vessels have not been able to get through.
Since 1960, at least 25 lives and an equal number of boats have been lost at Oregon Inlet. Last winter, watermen were able to use the channel only at high tide, during daylight hours, because its depth dropped from 12 feet to an average of 10 feet. Conditions have worsened since then.
``The company the Army Corps of Engineers contracted with knew the conditions of that inlet. They'd worked out there before,'' Tillet said. ``If they didn't think they could do the job, why'd they take the bid in the first place? It cost us - the federal taxpayers - $1 million just to mobilize all the equipment. Then, they let it all go.''
Great Lakes is the same company that owned the dredge that smashed into the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge after the 1991 Halloween Storm. Since its workers can't finish clearing Oregon Inlet, the Corps of Engineers will have to contract with a separate Hopper dredge to complete the project, said Robert Williams, chairman of the Oregon Inlet and Waterways Commission. ``There are no additional funds to allocate for the inlet dredging.''
Most of the sediment cleared by Great Lakes came from the sandbar well east of the Bonner Bridge, Daniels said. Although his workers weren't able to finish the project, he said they were able to ``open it up enough to get folks through there. We had 40 people out here - sometimes the weather got so bad we couldn't get off,'' he said.
``We'll try again out here one of these days.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color map
KEYWORDS: CHANNEL DREDGING OREGON INLET by CNB