The Corps Dredge Currituck performs dredging operations in Virginia Beach's Rudee Inlet in 2005. The Currituck is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hopper dredge that performs maintenance dredging up and down the East Coast. (U.S. Army Photo/Patrick Bloodgood)
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Chincoteague dredging start delayed
Posted March 4, 2011
By Patrick Bloodgood
Norfolk District Public Affairs
03/03/2011 - CHINCOTEAGUE, Va. — Dredging of the Chincoteague Inlet federal navigation channel originally scheduled to start March 6 is delayed until March 9 due to dredging operations in North Carolina.
"The Coast Guard requested the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Dredge Currituck remove severely shoaled portions of Oregon Inlet in North Carolina so they could execute their rescue missions before it moved on to its next job at Chincoteague, Va.," said Christopher Frabotta, dredging project manager with the Corps' Wilmington District.
Annual scheduled maintenance dredging of the Chincoteague Inlet federal navigation channel will remove about 100,000 cubic yards of beach quality sand keeping it open and safe for commercial and recreational watercraft.
The dredge should not interfere with boaters navigating the channel. The Currituck, scheduled to be onsite for 21 days, will work around-the-clock to remove the potential hazards from the channel.
The sand the dredge collects from the project will be placed just offshore of NASA's Wallops Island facility.
The Chincoteague Inlet is the gateway to the largest commercial port on the Eastern Shore, handling more than 3,000 vessels a year, including U.S. Coast Guard vessels. The annual project was approved in 1972 by the chief of engineers under the authority of Section 107 of the River and Harbor act of July 14, 1960.
Updated: 04-Mar-2011