Posted on March 30, 2017
By Bill Walsh StarNews Correspondent
Dredging of the Shallotte Inlet crossing on the Intracoastal Waterway in Ocean Isle Beach wrapped up Friday, an operation that took less than the scheduled two weeks, according to Southwind Construction Corp. night superintendent Jim Barton.
The dredged sand was pumped onto the east end of Ocean Isle Beach, with about 36,000 cubic yards added to strips about 800 feet wide on both the east and west sides of Shallotte Boulevard.
Whether the sand application makes a difference or not depends, Mayor Debbie Smith said.
“Most of the time it does,” she said, “but this is very fine material, which does not meld to the beaches well, and then (the routine dredging) is not usually a large enough volume to make a long-term difference. But every bit of sand helps.”
Southwind Construction Corp. conducted the dredging operations with the dredge Wilko, an Ellicott cutter dredge, and workboats Proud Mary and Miss Leanne. Barton said that the work was “just routine maintenance of the Intracoastal Waterway,” and that the project went according to plan.
Meanwhile, the town is planning a terminal groin structure east of Shallotte Boulevard to address erosion problems on the island’s east end. Slightly over half a mile of shoreline directly west of the terminal groin will be pre-filled with 264,000 cubic yards of sand that will be obtained by dredging Shallotte Inlet.
Source: StarNews Online
