Engineers started dredging to allow 

 larger trawlers to safely pass and in 

 1963 when the two-and-a-half-mile-long 

 Bonner Bridge was built. The inlet's 

 natural inclination to migrate south 

 began to threaten bridge foundations, 

 and the shifting inlet channel required 

 greater, and more expensive, measures 

 to maintain its place. The Corps of 

 Engineers now keeps one dredge boat 

 working in Oregon Inlet full-time and 

 occasionally 

 calls for backup 

 vessels. The 

 dredging 

 program costs 

 about $5 

 million a year, 

 but still the 

 Corps can keep 

 open only a 14- 

 foot channel 

 through the 

 inlet about 30 

 percent of the 

 time. Fishers 

 contend the 

 inlet's shoaling 

 costs lives, jobs 

 and earnings, 

 and few deny 

 that the critical 

 Bonner Bridge is at risk. 

 But coastal scientists and 

 environmentalists question 

 whether any man-made 

 solution can blunt the forces 

 of a dynamic barrier system, 

 and land managers with the 

 U.S. Department of the 

 Interior have refused to 

 allow jetties to be anchored 

 on their property. 



So what to do? I ask 

 myself that question as I 

 drive from Whalebone 

 Junction down Bodie Island 

 and across Oregon Inlet to 

 the Pea Island National 

 Wildlife Refuge, where the 

 Corps proposes to construct 

 the southern jetty. I've spent 



many a happy hour at Pea Island, 

 scanning the marsh ponds for wading 

 birds and hoping to glimpse a peregrine 

 falcon. I've lolled about the deck of a 

 charter fishing boat while it crossed the 

 ocean bar at Oregon Inlet, celebrating a 

 catch of dolphin fish with friends while 

 the tight-lipped boat captain worried 

 about keeping the hull out of the sand. 



I've fished at Hatteras point and 

 camped at Ocracoke and eaten more than 

 my fair share of fresh 

 tuna. I'm no commer- 

 cial fisher or Hatteras 

 Village cottage 

 owner, but the 

 decisions made at 

 Oregon Inlet will 

 matter to me. Six 

 hundred million 

 dollars is serious 

 money to spend on 

 stabilizing an inlet 

 through a changing 

 barrier island. What 

 are our choices? 



JETTY 

 LACEMEf' 



I am unsure Tom Jarrett can tell 

 me, but fate has tapped him for the job 

 of point man for the Oregon Inlet jetty 

 project, and he agrees to meet me — 

 one more writer, the 50th, the 100th? — 

 at the inlet that has consumed his career. 

 Jarrett is chief of the coastal, hydrology 

 and hydraulics section of the Corps' 

 Wilmington District. So far, the 

 Department of the Interior has refused 

 to allow jetties to be constructed on its 

 land, citing concerns over eroding Pea 

 Island's critical shorebird and waterfowl 

 habitat. At present, construction awaits 

 another round of public review, this one 

 in response to a fresh economic analysis 

 and the Corps' latest plan to move 

 trapped sand with ocean dredges and 

 spread it along Pea Island whenever 

 needed. 



Another 90-day comment period 

 will follow, this one likely open through 

 early autumn, then the Corps staff will 

 have another chance to take a deep 

 breath while state and federal officials 

 wrangle over whether to try to land 



Coming home means crossing the ocean bar at Oregon Inlet. 

 In rough water, it's a tough place to be. 



10 HIGH SEASON 1998 



