Perdido Pass to be dredged
City would like to use dredged sand to bolster eroded beaches, but likely won't for funding reasons Thursday, February 12, 2009 By RYAN DEZEMBER Staff Reporter
ORANGE BEACH - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers aims to begin dredging the navigation channels through Perdido Pass within a month, likely removing more than 400,000 cubic square yards of sand that has choked boating lanes in recent years.
City officials had hoped to use that sand - equal to about 25,000 dump truckloads - to bolster portions of its manmade beach that were eroded by this past summer's storms. It's estimated that hurricanes Ike and Gustav, though they merely passed by in the Gulf of Mexico, swept away about 750,000 cubic yards of sand from Orange Beach's shoreline, Coastal Resource Manager Phillip West said.
To move the sand dredged from the pass from the place the corps usually deposits it - just west of the inlet's western jetty - to the spots it is needed would cost the city between $2 and $3 per cubic yard, West said. Meanwhile dredging up sand from deep in the Gulf and pumping it ashore will probably cost about $8 per cubic yard, he said.
Though there are obvious taxpayer savings even if Orange Beach can only use the pass sand to replace a little more than half of that lost in the storms, it will likely cost the city far less to do it the more expensive way. West said that's because the Federal Emergency Management Agency - which traditionally pays for most of the work to replace public property like roads, bridges and engineered beaches after storms - has so far rejected Orange Beach's proposal to use the pass sand.
During a brief discussion of the matter at Tuesday night's City Council meeting, elected officials said they were unwilling to chance having the Federal Emergency Management Agency refuse to reimburse them for the cost of moving the pass sand to where it was needed.
"We can't afford that risk," Mayor Tony Kennon said.
Councilman Jeff Silvers said: "I don't want to bash FEMA, but I don't have confidence in them right now."
Council members also said they didn't want to do anything to delay the Corps clearing out Perdido Pass.
Those navigation channels, which link the city's backbays and bayous to the open Gulf, are crucial to Orange Beach's charter fishing and recreational boating businesses. They've been steadily silting in over recent years, reaching the point now where, Councilman Brett Holk said, boats are running aground in areas marked as navigation channels.
Lisa Coghlan, a Corps of Engineers spokeswoman, said that the cost of dredging Perdido Pass and its adjacent channels into Terry Cove, Cotton Bayou and Bayou St. John has yet to be cal culated, in part because no one knows how long the weather-
dependent job will take to complete.
Last winter the corps spent $3.5 million rebuilding the eastern jetty and weir, which helps the pass hold its shape, in part by keeping beach sand on its westward drift from getting trapped in the navigation channels.
West said the corps has a dredging contractor finishing a job in Biloxi that will likely be moved to Orange Beach in the coming weeks. Trying to delay the dredging to work out a funding arrangement with FEMA could postpone dredging of the pass.
"I would hate to get us out of the loop and risk another storm season and completely close the pass," West said.
Though West said Orange Beach would try to move the pass sand as far west as possible without major funding, the city will likely have to begin planning a project to dredge sand from the Gulf of Mexico. Per FEMA rules, the city has up to three years after a storm to start such a project and be eligible for reimbursement, West said.
It could take as long as a year to plan and gain permitting to dredge sand from the Gulf, and in that time Orange Beach may be able to coordinate a beach renourishment project with neighboring Gulf Shores and perhaps even Dauphin Island to reduce costs, West said.
Comments(1)