Oregon Inlet shoaling problems

by Jeff Hampton, Virginian Pilot, April 17, 2014.

The imminent start of the charter fishing season finds boat owners and local officials hoping for a literal change in the wind to open the sand-clogged Oregon Inlet anytime soon.

But long-range solutions ride more on political winds after the channel shoaled to less than 2 feet this week, even trapping a dredge attempting to reopen the waterway. The Army Corps of Engineers withdrew the vessel with no other way or money to remove tons of sand blocking one of the few openings connecting the Pamlico Sound to the Atlantic Ocean.

"It's the worst I've ever seen it," said Warren Judge, chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners.

"We're sitting here waiting on a southwest wind. My gosh, what if we don't get a southwest wind this summer?"

Storms from the north tend to push sand into the channel, he said. South winds tend to shove it out.

Judge is one of the state and local officials who expect to submit a plan to the North Carolina General Assembly next month with options for maintaining the inlet, including transferring ownership of both shorelines from the U.S. Interior Department to the state. The transfer and permitting process could take years.

Charter fishing season typically begins Easter weekend. Fishing boat owners have a choice of detouring some 50 miles south to Hatteras Inlet or risk passing under a narrow span of the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge south of the marked channel.

"You have no room for error," said James Reibel, charter boat fisherman on the board of the Commission for Working Watermen. "Everybody's scared to death of the place."

The Coast Guard advises against passing through such unmarked spans, where the water tends to be deeper but bridge pilings are closer.

"The main span is fendered for a reason," said Chief Warrant Officer Joe Edge, a Coast Guard waterways manager for the North Carolina sector, referring to protective padding.

A sport-fishing boat passing through an unmarked span struck the bridge and sank last summer. At least 25 people have died and 22 boats have been lost in the inlet since the 1960s, according to the Dare County website.

The Corps of Engineers late last year dredged the channel to about 14 feet for $7.8 million. The channel filled again, prompting another attempt in January.

"That's a pretty strong demonstration that dredging is not going to work," said Harry Schiffman, vice chairman of the Dare County Oregon Inlet Task Force. "It's getting harder and harder to get money for it."

It costs $4 million to $5 million a year to keep the channel open; the federal budget allots $800,000 for Oregon Inlet and waterways near Manteo.

Schiffman operates a vessel-towing company in Dare County for BoatUS and has worked for more than 30 years to maintain Oregon Inlet, created by a storm in the 1840s.

"I've seen a lot of things tried," he said.

State ownership of the shorelines could work, Schiffman said. Newer modeling and data-collecting technology could render a solution other than the traditional jetties opposed for years by environmentalists and others.

Federal funding depends on commercial hauling weight through the inlet and barely accounts for tourism impacts, Schiffman said. About 200 boat trips from the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center alone passed through the channel daily. Charter and commercial fishing, boat-building and seafood-processing industries depending on Oregon Inlet generated a $682.7 million annual benefit to Dare County, according to a 2006 study.

Proposed offshore wind-energy projects and spawning fish are among other reasons to clear the inlet, Reibel said.

Anglers hope for answers soon, charter captain Johnny Morse said.

"Everybody here is in a holding pattern," Morse said. "They've always found a way. I've just got to believe they will do it again."

http://hamptonroads.com/2014/04/oregon-inlet-shoaling-problem-deepens