Posted on March 19, 2019
BOGUE BANKS — The island’s long-planned beach nourishment project started as expected last week, and by mid-day Friday, crews from Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. are expected to have completed close to 5,000 linear feet of new beach construction.
The Illinois-based company didn’t waste time once it got started, according to Carteret County Shore Protection Office Manager Greg Rudolph, completing about 1,000 linear feet by Sunday.
“They’ve made very nice progress in less than 48 hours,” he said earlier this week. “And the sand quality is fantastic.”
The first load of sand from the “borrow” site off Atlantic Beach was dredged up and delivered to the strand in Indian Beach by the Great Lakes Liberty Island hopper dredge by 4:15 p.m. March 8.
By mid-afternoon Tuesday, Mr. Rudolph said, the total nourishment area had increased to about 3,000 linear feet.
“That’s really good for four or five days, and the material is still looking very good,” he said. “Everybody is happy so far.”
If anything, the pace has picked up since then.
The crew was moving west to east, but started moving east to west Thursday morning.
“We’re probably sitting at over 4,000 linear feet of beach completed and well over 100,000 cubic yards delivered,” Mr. Rudolph said mid-morning Thursday, “and we could be close to 5,000 feet by … tomorrow afternoon.
“All in one week…” Mr. Rudolph added. “They’re doing really well, productivity-wise. The beach looks great, the dunes look great and will be planted after construction.”
The plan is to plant sea oats and bitter panicum, a type of grass, on the tops and slopes of the dune line, many of which eroded some over the years and were further damaged by Hurricane Florence in mid-September.
“The dune feature will be constructed and tied into the existing, scarped dune that characterized Bogue Banks after Hurricane Florence,” he said.
The sea oats and grass will help keep the dunes together and trap more blowing sand.
“Weather (problems) and mechanical issues have been virtually nil,” Mr. Rudolph said of the project, “just a little weather downtime this past Sunday, but that’s it.
“It takes roughly 4.5 hours to complete a cycle; that’s dredging, sailing to the pump-out station, pumping the sand to the beach and sailing back to the borrow source (off Atlantic Beach) near Beaufort Inlet.”
Great Lakes and the county’s engineers, Moffatt & Nichol, are working around the clock, looking at the nourishment template on the beach and making small adjustments in real time to maximize the geometry of the nourishment project as the work progresses, Mr. Rudolph said.
“They’ve been doing a fantastic job,” he said of everyone involved in the effort.
They’re also keeping an eye out for sea turtles, because if they are present in large numbers, work might have to stop.
“We’ve been trawling ahead of the dredge with respect to sea turtles, starting the day before the Liberty Island arrived and started,” Mr. Rudolph said.
“The water temperature trigger to do that (trawling) is anything over 57 degrees and we’re below that threshold, but we want to be proactive and do everything we can do to prevent lethal takes.”
When the second dredge, the larger Ellis Island arrives, he said, “We’ll add a second trawler.”
Mr. Rudolph said “fingers are crossed” the project continues to be as successful as it has been so far.
“It can all change in just a matter of hours and out of nowhere,” he said. “Turtles, weather, mechanicals, take your pick. It only takes one thing to go awry and – kaboom.”
The $20.1 million project is expected to end the week of Tuesday, April 23 to Tuesday, April 30, barring unforeseen circumstances such as bad weather, and should cover a distance of about 5.2 miles, or about 27,700 linear feet of shore, in Indian Beach, Salter Path and eastern Emerald Isle. The contract calls for completion by April 30.
The Liberty Island is a hopper dredge with a capacity of 5,000 cubic yards of material. It will be joined soon by the Ellis Island, which has a capacity of 15,000 cubic yards – the amount of material it can scoop up before discharging toward shore.
The double-dredge effort is needed so the project is finished before Easter weekend if possible, which now appears likely. Emerald Isle will be finished last, according to Mr. Rudolph.
The county’s original cost estimate for the project, planned before Hurricane Florence hit in September, was about $17.5 million.
After two bid periods, the county selected Great Lakes, the only company that submitted a bid, and the boosted $20.1 million project that was awarded includes sand to replace that lost during Florence.
The work is being funded mostly through the county beach nourishment fund, which gets half of the revenue from the county’s occupancy tax.
There’s also a $5 million contribution from the state, authorized by the General Assembly, and each local government involved – Salter Path is unincorporated and as such is covered by the county – will pay a share based on how much sand each will receive.
Emerald Isle’s non-state share of the cost is about $2.6 million, while Indian Beach’s share is $1.08 million.
The county is to supply $237,323 in general fund money for the Salter Path portion of the project. In addition, the county will cough up $11,932,779 in non-state money from the nourishment fund.
Emerald Isle is to get 617,231 cubic yards of sand along a stretch of about 3 miles in the eastern end of town, or about 65 percent of the total project.
Indian Beach is to get 271,905 cubic yards split between the eastern and western ends of town, roughly about 29 percent of the total.
Salter Path, which is between east Indian Beach and west Indian Beach, is to receive 56,410 cubic yards, or about 6 percent of the total project.
Source: carolinacoastonline.com
