THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 23, 1995 TAG: 9511230561
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OREGON INLET LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
With two of their own dredges already working and another scheduled to arrive Dec. 1, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is trying to finish clearing a channel through this Outer Banks inlet.
A Maryland-based company started pumping sand out of Oregon Inlet in September. With a $2.1 million federal contract, the company was scheduled to have completed the dredging by the end of October. But the dredgers - delayed by bad weather - quit and removed their equipment on Nov. 12 after finishing only one-third of the project.
So the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which issued the contract, is having to finish the work themselves.
Now, the project probably won't be completed before January.
``We're really trying hard to get that inlet cleared out,'' Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Marty Van Duyne said Wednesday. ``There's a partial channel open out there now. And we're going to bat to get this thing fixed completely.''
The only outlet to the sea in 140 miles between Cape Henry in Virginia Beach and Hatteras Inlet, Oregon Inlet lies between Nags Head and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. It is the primarypassage for commercial and recreational fishing boats based along the northern Outer Banks. But in recent years, the channel has shoaled so much that deep-draft vessels have not been able to get through.
Since 1960, the Oregon Inlet has claimed at least 25 lives and an equal number of boats - which watermen call ``the most dangerous inlet on the East Coast.'' Last winter, fishermen were only able to use the channel at high tide, during daylight hours, because its depth shallowed from 12 feet to an average of 10 feet. Conditions have gotten worse since then.
In September alone, charter fishing boats based at the inlet missed at least seven days of sports fishing because the inlet was in such bad shape.
The Corps of Engineers did not dredge the Oregon Inlet at all in 1994. The channel was last cleared in August 1993.
Workers with Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. began laying pipeline through the inlet on Sept. 18. The federally contracted company planned to pump 250,000 cubic yards of sediment from the ocean's floor and dig a 14-foot-deep channel at least 400 feet wide. They were going to remove enough sand to fill 41,670 dump trucks.
Instead, they cleared 65,000 cubic yards of sediment and created a 200-foot wide path about 2,500 feet long. The average depth was increased from nine to 13 feet.
Then, the workers jumped ship because of the same weather and ocean floor conditions that make Oregon Inlet so treacherous.
``We've been bouncing around out there now going on two months,'' Great Lakes Dredge Superintendent George Daniels said as his company was preparing to pull out of the inlet. ``We came in and went out so many times, we just gave up.''
Great Lakes used a pipeline dredge which pumped sand out of the inlet, through miles of spidery pipeline, and deposited it onto the beach at Pea Island. The Army Corps has a sidecaster dredge called the Schweitzer that digs sand from the channel and spits it out of the vessel's side, back into the ocean.
This week, the Currituck dredge arrived to help the Schweitzer crew clear the inlet. The Currituck is a hopper dredge that scoops sand and contains it - then travels out to sea to dump the sediment away from the inlet. Another hopper dredge is scheduled to arrive Dec. 1 to help finish the project.
``We've modified the contract so that third dredge can come in. The other two will work together until then,'' Van Duyne said. ``We don't intend to add any money to the contract. But we do plan to remove another 140,000 cubic yards of sand and get the inlet channel cleared to 14 feet.''
When those dredges are done, they will have removed about 45,000 cubic yards of sand less than the original contract called for.
Wanchese fisherman Moon Tillett, who serves on Dare County's Oregon Inlet and Waterways Commission, said he was glad to see the two dredges working in the channel this week. But he hopes the channel will be widened as well as deepened. Each dredge, he said, can pump about 3,000 yards of sand a day.
``With three dredges, they ought to get through out there by the end of December,'' Tillett said Wednesday. ``I was surprised to see that second dredge out there already. That little thing can dig.
``I'm not too disappointed. I really think the Corps is doing everything they can on this inlet. But they're not going to do all they were supposed to do,'' said Tillett. ``They're just going to finish out what money they have. And we'll have to work with that.
``When they're through with that dredging, I think that inlet will be all right. But we need them to put some buoys back so we can see where the channel is,'' Tillett said.
``All that work'll only last 'til about February or March, though,'' predicted Tillett. ``After that, when the nor'easters began blowing, it'll go right back to what it was. Keeping a channel clear through there is a constant process.'' by CNB