The New Hanover County Board of Commissioners will provide funds to a $3.6 million project to correct the southward migration of Mason Inlet, which separates Wrightsville Beach from Figure Eight Island, by nudging the inlet north.
The board agreed on Dec. 14 to fund the project through the room occupancy tax under the condition that the county is reimbursed by property owners on Wrightsville’s north end and Figure Eight’s south end. The project is scheduled to begin in January 2016.
Those 1,044 property owners whose homes could be affected by the inlet’s migration make up the Mason Inlet Preservation Group and through a 2001 agreement are responsible for funding the inlet’s maintenance.
The district includes properties north of the Wrightsville Beach’s Holiday Inn Resort because “it was determined those properties would benefit by the relocation of Mason Inlet,” said David Kellam, president of the Figure Eight Island Homeowners Association.
While Figure Eight’s properties aren’t threatened by the inlet’s migration south, those homeowners benefit from the deal because they buy the sand dredged during the relocation and use it to build up the south end of their beach.
“That’s our only benefit,” Kellam said, “being the recipient of the sand.”
Figure Eight buys the dredged sand at $5.50 per cubic yard, so the more sand that is dredged, the less Wrightsville Beach homeowners have to pay. This time, based on an engineer’s estimate, Figure Eight will buy $2.6 million worth of sand, leaving Wrightsville Beach stakeholders to pay the remaining $1 million of the project cost.
Over the last decade, Mason Inlet has required maintenance about every three years, although the county’s shore protection coordinator, Layton Bedsole, told the commissioners “we’re trying to make efforts to extend that [cycle].”
In the late 1990s, the inlet’s extreme southern migration necessitated a wall of sandbags protecting Wrightsville’s Shell Island Resort, which Kellam said was “falling into the water.” In 2002, to save the hotel and nearby residences, the inlet was moved 3,000 feet north.
Bedsole said to avoid such drastic measures in the future, triggers were put in place to prompt a minor maintenance project if the inlet moves too far south or becomes too shallow in certain areas.
“It’s much better to maintain anything than to re-fix it,” he said.
The project will involve a dredge in Mason Inlet, but all the plumbing to deposit the sand will be located on Figure Eight Island. Bedsole said the project should be finished by the third week in March.
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