The Barney Slough route has been better known around these parts as the “temporary” route or the “alternate” route or the “long” route or even the “are-they-still-dredging-are-we-ever-going-to-go-back-to-the-short-route-why-don’t-they-build-a-bridge-ferry-traffic-is-down-25%-people-wait-line-all-day-to-get-here-it’s-killing-the-daytripper-business-my-car-is-getting-soaked-with-saltwater” route, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.
Sadly, going back to the short route is and was, as we all feared, just wishful thinking. It’s too shallow and dredging efforts have failed to keep it open. Crossing Hatteras Inlet used to take 35-40 minutes; the Barney Slough passage takes 60-75 minutes. That’s our new normal and we’d better get used to it.
The Coast Guard put a positive spin on the Barney Slough today. Capt. Sean Murtagh, sector commander of the NC sector, said the USCG was “happy to provide a permanent, established, and marked additional permanent waterway” for the busiest ferry route in the second largest ferry system in the U.S.
He also announced that the USCG will continue to mark Hatteras Inlet with aids to navigation.
Ed Goodwin, director of the North Caroline ferry division, said he was pleased to attend this “Coast Guard ribbon-cutting” for a new channel.
“Barney Slough has been there for over 200 years,” he said. “Now it’s recognized as a navigable channel.”
Using the Barney Slough route, which is longer than the old, short route that we need to stop pining after, costs the ferry division an extra $7500-8500 a day for fuel. He says that it will be easier for the ferry division to ask for that funding now that they’ll be using an official channel. It will also be safer, he added, with additional navigation aids in place.
Goodwin compared the short route to his former dream car: a ’72 Corvette. He happily owned that car once but knows that if he still did, he’d be working very hard to keep it running. Would it be worth it? He thinks a better solution is a new kind of ferry. Goodwin has requested a DOT feasibility study on smaller, faster, passenger-only ferries. (More on that later.)
Dare County’s board of commissioners chair Warren Judge thanked the Coast Guard, Corps, and DOT (as well as staff from Sen. Kay Hagan and Sen. Richard Burr’s offices), and then spoke about the importance of Hatteras Inlet to Hatteras Island’s hardworking commercial and charter fishing fleet.
“The channels to the ocean are our roads,” he said. “It’s critical to the local economy that we have our road to go to work. We need safe passage out the inlet.”
Ocracoke media mogul Peter Vankevich lobbed the first question when the Q and A time began. “Do you anticipate shoaling with the new route?” he asked.
The short answer is “probably, eventually,” said Bob Keistler, navigation project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers.
He pointed out that the south end of Hatteras Island keeps moving and getting shorter.
“All of our projects are authorized by Congress,” he said. “The Corps doesn’t have permission to dredge in the new channel, but we are pursuing permits.”
Discussion ensued about former dredging efforts with both sidecaster and pipeline dredges – why not use the dredged sand to build the point of Hatteras back up? Is it possible to get permitting for that? (“It would have to come from Congress,” Keistler said.)
Commenters from Hatteras (including Dare County commissioner Allen Burrus) were mostly concerned about the maintenance of the inlet for fishing purposes. Keistler reassured them that only an act of Congress could de-classify the channel, and “it won’t be abandoned as long as we have funding.”
“At minimum, we will always survey the channel and go to battle for money for our projects,” he said.
Jason Burke from the USCG added that his crew will continue to mark the channel as needed, moving the markers to the “best water” as found by the local fishermen (who mark their own deep water routes with plastic bottles.)
Justin LeBlanc steered the discussion to Ocracoke’s concerns, “How do we get back to the short route? Is there a better dredge solution?”
“We have authorization to dredge the [old, short, bygone] channel to be 100 feet wide and 10 feet deep,” Keistler said. “When Congress Provides funding, we dredge when we can.”
He added that getting funding for shallow-draft inlets has been a problem since 2005, under Republicans and Democrats alike.
“We had a pipeline dredge after Irene in 2011,” he said. “And we couldn’t survey fast enough before the inlet shoaled again. In the right situation, it’s a good tool. We need a big dredge with a shallow draft.”
He explained that everything the Federal government is asked to pay for goes through a process of deciding if the money spent is justifiable. Dredging the inlet and pumping the sand back on the beach to rebuild the tip of Hatteras Island would be a big project, but it’s possible.
“In our hearts, hell, yes, the money is worth it, and the time and getting the permits,” Keistler said. “But we would have to have interest from above for it to happen.”
Warren Judge respectfully disagreed. “We’re not going to get Federal money for this,” he said. “It will come from the state and from Dare County. There’s got to be a groundroots effort. Permits will be a problem, but we alter Mother Nature every day.” He ended by encouraging concerned citizens to bend the ears of the Senators Hagan and Burr’s respective representatives.
