Bald Head Island’s shoreline is inching closer to renourishment.
Bidding is under way for the deepening of the Wilmington Harbor Shipping Channel, sand from which is reserved for eroded portions of Bald Head’s strand.
If all goes as projected, more than 1.7 million cubic yards of channel sand will pump to the island, giving it the nurture that local officials contend is long overdue—and relates to an ongoing lawsuit the island’s government has waged with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Oral arguments in the case are slated for Oct. 25.
It’s all per an agreement with the federal government called the Sand Management Plan (SMP), in which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agrees to return the channel’s dredged sand to adjacent beaches—being Bald Head Island’s predominantly, with Caswell Beach, on the other side of the channel, also getting a share in certain years. Bald Head is next in the rotation when channel maintenance begins this winter.
The sand will cost the island’s government nothing.
If the project had followed its normal schedule, however, Bald Head would have seen the sand in winter 2010-2011. Officials had explained that Congress didn’t appropriate the roughly $15 million needed to work on the channel’s “inner bar,” where beach-quality sand accumulated.
Bald Head argued the SMP and related documents gave the Corps a mandate to dredge the channel and renourish the beach on a set schedule, and that the Corps was in violation when it let the 2010-2011 cycle pass without action.
Attorneys for the island municipality maintain the Corps is responsible for its “chronic” erosion. Officials with the Village of Bald Head Island say the Corps didn’t do enough to address or prevent shoreline damages when the Corps relocated the shipping channel closer to the island more than a decade ago.
The channel’s previous alignment ran over a rocky floor, which the Corps was able to avoid by cutting a new passage to the east, closer to Bald Head’s South and West beaches. That proximity has led to beach-chomping erosion, island officials said in a lawsuit filed in December 2010 that demanded the Corps correct the issue, “whether that be modification of the harbor channel, amended dredging and sand management practices, or a combination of the foregoing.”
“Based on research and studies by scientists, coastal engineers and other experts, the channel adversely impacts the beaches closest to it,” particularly at the convergence of South and West beaches, known as the Point, according to the village’s Shoreline Protection Committee in a statement just prior to the lawsuit’s filing.
The Corps has a longstanding policy of not commenting on matters in court, but in recent filings its lawyers have said the agency has acted completely within the law, and that the Corps’ primary charge is to make sure the shipping industry has a safe and navigable channel at the Cape Fear River mouth.
It has also denied that any mandate exists to dredge the channel and renourish adjacent beaches on a schedule as Bald Head’s officials say. The work is discretionary, according to the Corps, and the real reason it dumps the dredged sand on Bald Head’s beaches is because it’s the cheapest way to dispose of the material.
The village’s lawsuit remains alive through an appeal following a dismissal in U.S. District Court in late 2011.
As for the channel project, bidding will remain open until Oct. 25, Karen Ellison, public information officer for the village, said.
According to a bulletin from the village, sand placement will help to stabilize the island’s existing South Beach groin field—a series of 16 enormous, sand-filled fabric tubes that work to slow shoreline losses—and address the “scouring” along West Beach.
“Village staff note that while it is good news that we have moved into the bid solicitation phase, there still is much work to be done before we see sand on our beaches,” a newsletter stated. “We continue to work closely with the Corps and are optimistic.”
Contact Ben Brown at [email protected] or (910) 772-6335. On Twitter: @benbrownmedia
