The past two weeks, when I have been running my so-called “Picnic Area intervals,” I have noticed that equipment was being moved into place in the parking lot. After a one-mile warm-up, I have been sprinting from the “Yield” sign at one end of the parking lot to the trash can at the other, about one-eighth of a mile, then resting and sprinting back again. Yesterday I was pleased that, despite a stiff wind blowing, my fastest time was 1:01. That is about the same time I ran last year, which is encouraging, and I remember that I finally even managed to get below one minute last year. It is amazing how much a single second or two can mean to a runner! It could mean the difference between qualifying for the Boston Marathon or not.
Yesterday, just like last week, I found my own private track blocked by traffic cones and two sections of tape. Had I been a hurdler, I might have viewed this as a challenge and attempted to jump over, but instead I threaded my way through the middle, right down the double-yellow line.
At the east end of the parking lot there was much activity. Several vehicles and pieces of equipment had been moved in, and there were portable toilets set up as well as a temporary shed such as one sees on construction sites. There were also two generators and a big diesel fuel tank in the opposite corner of the parking lot.
Down on the beach near the jetty where we had walked a couple of weeks ago, there was a huge pile of rusty pipe, perhaps 40 or 50 lengths at that time, 20 feet long and about 24” in diameter. I will post some photos of them next time I am walking on the beach. A little research led me to discover that the sections of pipe will be assembled and connected to a pipeline dredge, part of an $18 million project called the Morehead City Harbor Dredging & Concurrent Beach Nourishment (2021). Silt will be dredged from the Morehead City Harbor and deposited on this beach. The city is a State Port and the deepest East Coast port, the destination for all of those freighters we see on the horizon.
A cutterhead-suction dredge utilizes a crane situated on a barge that positions the cutterhead, which looks like a gigantic drill bit, along the seafloor. The cutterhead agitates the sandy bottom, and the resulting slurry of sediment and water is subsequently suctioned into a long tube transitioning into a pipeline that can be extended to a specific target area (beach, upland disposal site, etc.). Pipeline dredges are usually not self-powered, but are towed to the dredging site and secured in place by special anchor pilings, called spuds. The dredge has enough horsepower to pump the sand a maximum distance of approximately 4.25 miles extending from the channel westward close to the Atlantic Beach Circle.
A truly wonderful Beach Nourishment Base Map was provided on the website, indicating white areas that will gradually be colored in red as the project moves forward.
I thoroughly enjoy sitting on the dune-top deck here, watching brown pelicans glide by on motionless wings, and the distant glistening arcs of dolphins out on the ocean some days, and all of the other parts of this natural world.
Time has its own rules out here.
The hours come and go like the tide,
Rising and falling all day long,
Leaving moon jellies behind on the sand.
I also thoroughly enjoy watching work like this take place, a testament to human ingenuity and science, to skilled labor and complicated engineering yoked together, moving huge quantities of sand through a pipe and depositing it on a beach miles away. It reminds me that we Americans are, after all, the same people who had the audacious courage to send a man to the moon and bring him back home again. And to build the engineering marvels that we take for granted every day, from power dams to skyscrapers to jet aircraft.
At our best, we are capable of achieving great things!
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