The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) has scheduled emergency maintenance dredging to begin at the entrance to Double Creek State Channel in Barnegat Inlet, Ocean County, after a late-September nor'easter left a shoal across the channel's full width.
NJDOT describes the channel as the main route from the ocean into Barnegat Bay.
The department said water at the entrance is three feet (0.91 metres) deep at mean low water and falls to 1.5 feet (0.46 metres) or less with tide and wind.
Contractor H&L Construction is scheduled to lay pipeline on October 14, with hydraulic dredging expected to start around October 15.
The roughly $1 million project aims to remove up to 40,000 cubic yards (30,600 cubic metres) of sand that has shoaled along approximately 1,200 feet (366 metres) from the entrance and restore a depth of seven feet (2.13 metres) at mean low water.
Work will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with completion expected by early November. NJDOT said the sand will be beneficially used and kept within the sediment system.
"Barnegat Inlet itself is one of the most dynamic navigable inlets on the east coast, and the Double Creek entrance channel lies at the head of the inlet's flood shoal," the department said.
Buoys and lights will mark the pipeline, and state aids to navigation may be removed as needed. NJDOT does not expect full channel closures. If one becomes necessary, the department will announce it through a local notice to mariners. Boaters are advised to proceed at no-wake speed through the work zone.
H&L Construction is also carrying out NJDOT's separate $8.4 million Beach Haven West Complex dredging project, which is due to finish in December. Further south, an agreement has been reached for emergency dredging at Townsends Inlet, where shifting sand narrowed a navigational channel.
