Posted on November 3, 2020
Expanding the times available for dredging the Wilmington and Morehead City harbors could save taxpayers $13-million during the next two decades, according to a draft environmental assessment filed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps, which is responsible for keeping shipping lanes open, has submitted a formal request with state regulators to allow dredging from July 1-April 15.
Currently, hopper dredging and leveling of the bottom is allowed only from December 1-April 15, the assessment stated.
Adding roughly two-and-a-half months to the dredging “window” would save money, better protect the channel, and could be done without significantly harming the environment, states the assessment.
The current ban on dredging from mid-April to the end of November is commonly considered a protection for nesting sea turtles and their hatchlings. The restriction, however, also exists in part to protect fish larvae, juvenile fish, migratory marine species and tiny creatures that live on the seafloor, called benthic invertebrates.
The proposal to relax dredging restrictions has been a hot topic among beach communities for years. There are only a handful of companies and Corps ships capable of doing the work, and compressing their activities into the winter makes jobs more expensive.
Further, beach town leaders have long argued that Nor’easters and other factors create some of the least favorable conditions for dredging during the winter.
“The ability to dredge any time of year is necessary for maintaining the proposed reaches of the Wilmington and Morehead City Harbors to full project depth and width at reasonable cost,” the Corps stated. “Eliminating the dredging window would provide maximum flexibility to obtain contract dredges when maintenance dredging is most needed. Removing the window restriction would also allow dredges to continue working until project completion, rather than having to stop and return at a later date to complete the work.
“Additionally, elimination of the hopper dredging window would alleviate the need to limit the scope of dredging to the bare minimum needed to keep channels open, thus allowing the Corps to perform maintenance dredging to full authorized project dimensions.”
Operations during turtle season would include using turtle-excluder devices on dredges and employing monitors who could shut down work if turtles or other protected marine species are detected.
The state’s Division of Coastal Management is soliciting public comment on the plan.
Interested persons are invited to submit written comments by November 25 to Daniel Govoni, Federal Consistency Coordinator, 400 Commerce Avenue, Morehead City, N.C. 28557, or by email to Daniel.Govoni@ncdenr.gov. Comments will be considered in developing the state’s consistency response, and notice of the decision will be provided upon request.
Source: stateportpilot
