"A barge can carry 4,000 tons in one 

 trip, while a truck can only carry 25 

 tons," Bennett says. "Sure the truck 

 might get there faster, but think of 

 how many trips it would take to deliver 

 the same tonnage." 



Bennett says Texasgulf has found 

 the waterway to be a cheap and easy 

 means of bringing in large quantities of 

 raw materials and shipping out the 

 company's finished product. Texasgulf 

 has purchased it's own barges and 

 tugboats for transportation of 

 materials, he says. 



Commercial use aside, the in- 

 tracoastal waterway is probably best 

 known as the yachtman's highway. 

 Each year about 2,000 yachts, 

 sailboats and cruisers travel along the 

 waterway in late fall and early spring 

 as boaters move south for the winter 

 and then north for the summer. 

 Recreational and commercial fisher- 

 men also use the waterway to move 

 from one fishing ground to another. 



To keep the waterway navigable for 

 both commercial and recreational use, 

 the Corps of Engineers must constant- 

 ly dredge parts of the waterway to 

 maintain its designated 12 -foot depth 

 and 90-foot width. 



Jim Wells, an engineer for the corps, 

 says two to three million cubic yards of 

 material are removed from the 

 waterway each year. He says the corps' 

 heaviest maintenance job is in Bruns- 

 wick County, where the waterway is 

 subject to tidal influence. The Corps of 

 Engineers also does a lot of main- 

 tenance work on the waterway's land 

 cuts to the Alligator and Pungo Rivers, 

 Wells says. 



Officials of some companies using 

 the waterway complain that it is not 

 adequately maintained. Dave Hewitt, 

 the Corps of Engineers' public infor- 

 mation officer in Wilmington, ac- 

 knowledges that there is sometimes a 

 problem with maintenance. "We 

 dredge areas where there is the greatest 

 need first," he says. "But we always 

 have a backlog." 



The Corps of Engineers uses survey 

 boats to determine which areas need 

 dredging and to investigate the com- 

 plaints they receive, Hewitt says. He 

 estimates the corps spends $10 million 

 to $15 million a year on maintenance. 



Dredging became a bigger headache 

 for the Corps of Engineers after a 1971 

 regulation made it illegal for the corps 

 to dispose of dredged material in open 

 water. Now the corps must dispose of 

 dredged material in either diked 



Photo by Clay Nolen 



Sailboats like these crowd the waterway each spring and fall 



islands or behind shoreline dikes. 



As there is limited island space 

 that can be used for disposal, the 

 corps soon may be trying to dispose of 

 the material along the 100-foot ease- 

 ment deeded to the corps when the 

 waterway was built. This may lead to 

 problems, however, since developers 

 have since sold property within the 

 easement and homes have been built 

 there. The problem is particularly 

 acute in Brunswick County, where 

 about 100 homes, as well as the Holden 

 Beach Town Hall and the Holden 

 Chapel Church, are situated within the 

 easement. 



Corps officials have recently notified 

 landowners, developers, bankers and 

 others in the area that the agency has 

 "the perpetual right to use land within 

 the easement and have placed a 

 moratorium on construction in the 

 area," Hewitt says. 



The corps is basing its actions on a 

 1975 court case in Carteret County in 

 which the federal court ruled that 

 further development of property 

 within the easement was not compati- 



ble with corps use. 



Homeowners living in the easement 

 in Brunswick County are upset by the 

 Corps of Engineers' actions. They fear 

 that the corps might next ask them to 

 tear down their homes or relocate. 

 Brunswick County Attorney John R. 

 Hughes has represented these home- 

 owners in negotiations with the Corps 

 of Engineers. Hughes says county ad- 

 ministrators planned to meet with 

 corps and state officials December 18, 

 "to gain assurances in writing for the 

 homeowners that their homes will not 

 be disturbed." 



The owners of undeveloped land in 

 the easement will have to negotiate 

 with the corps on an individual basis, 

 Hughes adds. "The situation was 

 potentially devastating if the corps had 

 taken a hard line toward the problem, 

 but fortunately they have not," he 

 says. 



The Corps of Engineers is blaming 

 no one for the encroachment on its 

 easement. "It's our belief that develop- 

 ment has taken place inadvertently," 

 Hewitt says. 



