Trash Heap
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http://www.coastalreview.org/2015/05/how-can-oregon-inlet-be-fixed/
I am going down to the outerbanks this summer. We are staying quite a bit more south than we usually do. Looking up some fishing spots and the Oregon Inlet came up. Then I ran across articles about the problem they are having keeping it open for boats to go through.
Some interesting things in the article:
I am going down to the outerbanks this summer. We are staying quite a bit more south than we usually do. Looking up some fishing spots and the Oregon Inlet came up. Then I ran across articles about the problem they are having keeping it open for boats to go through.
Some interesting things in the article:
So there was a permanent solution, however there is going to be some environmental impact.It wasn’t long after the Bonner Bridge was built in 1963 that watermen and local government officials began lobbying for construction of twin jetties that would theoretically stabilize the inlet by blocking sand traveling along the shoreline from entering the inlet. In 1970, Congress finally approved the $108 million jetty project, but failed to provide construction funds.
For the next 33 years, lobbying by the watermen – some of them the same people – continued unabated. The U.S. Department of the Interior and environmental groups, however, opposed the rock walls, saying that they would harm fisheries and property within Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, as well as erode beaches south of the inlet.
Jetty proponents said that in addition to creating jobs and tourism income, a stable, open inlet also promotes flushing that maintains water quality in the surrounding estuarine waters and allows a safe outlet for storm-driven surges.
Finally, in 2002, the White House Council on Environmental Quality announced that the jetty project was not warranted. Instead, the federal government promised to do more extensive dredging – a promise that Dare County and the state claim has not been kept.
7.3 Million Dollars a year to keep this thing open. WOW! Is this cost worth it! I know there are plenty of local businesses relying on that inlet to be open. Is there enough reason for this.Meanwhile, Dare County is working feverishly to find the $3.5 million it needs to match state funds for the annual dredging budget. In the proposed agreement between the state, the Army Corps of Engineers and the county, the inlet could be dredged by the Corps for 12 hours a day for 340 days a year for about $7.3 million.