Posted on May 8, 2018
By Lee Hinnant, stateportpilot.com
The clock is ticking on dredging of the inner ocean bar of the Wilmington Harbor, now that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has issued a notice to proceed to contractor Weeks Marine Inc.
The corps met with town officials Thursday to brief them on the project, and on Friday gave Weeks the go-ahead. The dredging company has 120 days from Friday to finish the task of putting 1.14-million cubic yards of sand on the strand at Caswell Beach and Oak Island.
The exact start date is not yet known. A member of the Weeks staff met Monday with Caswell Beach sea turtle volunteers to discuss monitoring and the need to relocate nests from the project area.
“They expect it to go pretty quickly because of the large size of the dredge they’re using,” said Caswell Beach Mayor Deborah Ahlers. “Our beach is getting a little bit shallow, so we’re grateful for the sand.”
Ahlers said the contractor is expected to bring a couple biologists to watch for sea turtles and also arrange for help from Caswell Beach Turtle Watch and the Oak Island Sea Turtle Protection Program. She and Oak Island Mayor Cin Brochure both said they believe the planned mitigation measures will be sufficient to protect the turtles, listed as a federally threatened species.
Ahlers said she and another town official met with all of the major vacation rental companies to let them know there will be a pipeline and heavy equipment on the beach for much of the summer.
“We all understand the need for sand,” Ahlers said. “We hope it’s going to be a really good thing for everyone.”
Weeks, based in Covington, Louisiana, got the job for $14.13-million, slightly less than the corps’ estimate of $14.29-million.
In addition to deepening the shipping channel closer to its authorized depth of 44 feet, the project will put sand along most of Caswell Beach west to about SE 58th Street in the Town of Oak Island. The project is scheduled to occur every two years, but was delayed last winter because of a lack of funding. No one bid on the work when it was first advertised in November 2017.
Because the channel is shoaled, environmental regulators have given the corps and its contractor “one-time-only” permission to dredge during spring and summer months, when beach projects have the greatest potential to affect not only turtles but also juvenile and migrating fish, oyster larvae and benthic species such as mole crabs and donax (coquina).
Source: stateportpilot.com
