
DATE: Friday, March 28, 1997                TAG: 9703280559

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:  102 lines

OVERWORKED DREDGE STRUGGLES IN RELENTLESS WAR WITH NATURE

Like a tired dragon rising from the depths, the long-necked cutter end of the dredge Rudee Inlet II broke the surface Thursday morning and waited. And waited.

Usually the reason the city's overworked dredge can't operate in the fast-shoaling Rudee Inlet is weather or mechanical failure. But this was another problem.

According to the city, workers building the seawall and boardwalk near the inlet dislodged a boulder from the jetty and it ripped through an elbow in the pipe that carries sand from the inlet onto the resort strip's southernmost beach.

A geyser of sand and water gushed from the ruptured pipe before the operation was suspended for the morning.

Keeping Rudee Inlet open has been a headache since 1927 when it was expanded from a shallow drainage ditch to a channel for fishing boats.

But Rudee has become a migraine in recent months as boats, including a brand new yacht said to be valued at $1.5 million, went hard aground on its shoaling banks. Courts have ruled that since the city has agreed to maintain the inlet, it owes a duty to the boating public to keep the channel navigable.

Yet the workforce needed to dredge Rudee Inlet has been sharply cut back - from 23 in 1988 to nine today. And the dredgers and the equipment are stretched almost to the breaking point during bad weather.

``Everybody wants to put the blame on somebody, but it's a tough job, a tough, continuous job,'' Chuck Fullerton, the city's waterways maintenance engineer, said as he and Lonnie Gregory, the operations supervisor, motored to the inlet's mouth to check wave conditions.

From the Rudee Inlet Bridge, the sea looked flat, but out at the mouth, southeast winds kicked up the surf at high tide.

``We couldn't get out here with the dredge,'' Gregory said. ``It wouldn't last long.''

Rudee II, as most call it, will never win the battle to keep an inlet open that nature wants to close.

``You are fighting a natural process that wants to close that thing,'' Fullerton said. ``Since its inception, this inlet has been a nightmare to maintain.''

Fullerton and the Public Works Department have asked City Council to come up with more money to hire up to 10 additional employees, and to consider buying a new, larger dredge for about $1.3 million.

It's costly, Fullerton agreed, but he said, ``The only way to get the job done is to commit the funds.''

Meanwhile, the crew is stretched to the limit, occasionally asked to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day.

``You just go home and sleep and come back,'' said Garland Beasley, a dredge equipment operator for the city for 32 years.

Perched in the pilothouse of the dredger, Beasley admitted it can be wearying, but he seemed ready to go out any time the battle with the sand could be waged.

``If we could continue coming out here week after week without the weather bothering us, we could keep it open,'' he said.

The last time Rudee II was able to get out to the mouth, where the heavy shoaling occurs, was Feb. 24. It stayed out from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.

But its log book speaks of the trouble that followed. ``Too rough to pump at mouth,'' it says. ``Too rough to pump in sand trap.'' ``Pulled dredge and pontoon line around corner.''

Rudee II has to retreat from ocean swells because they slam its dredger into the bottom. When that happens, the repair bills can run as high as $50,000.

Sidney Midgett, a dredge equipment operator for 26 years, has Rudee II's engine room nearly spotless.

Its 500 horsepower diesel pump was just shutting down for the morning. ``It's rough on the equipment,'' he said. ``Sometimes it can be rough on you if you don't watch out.'' ILLUSTRATION: DREDGING RUDEE INLET

[Color Photos]

CHARLIE MEADS photos/The Virginian-Pilot

This is a view across the entrance to Rudee Inlet, seen from atop

the dredge Rudee Inlet II. Keeping Rudee Inlet open has been a

headache since 1927 when it was expanded.

Garland Beasley, a leverman at Rudee Inlet, has been working on

dredges for 32 years.

CHARLIE MEADS/The Virginian-Pilot

This is a view from the entrance to Rudee Inlet, taken from the top

of Virginia Beach's dredge, looking south toward the homes fronting

on Croatan Beach, off General Booth Boulevard. An undermanned

dregding crew is occasionally asked to work seven days a week, 12