NORFOLK, Va. — North Carolina lost more than $4 million worth of business to Virginia this spring because the Oregon Inlet on the Outer Banks wasn't deep enough for large fishing boats to safely travel through, according to state estimates provided to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
More than 1.2 million pounds of flounder and nearly 33,000 pounds of black sea bass had to be sold and processed in Virginia between March 7 and the end of the season April 15 because sand was filling the inlet faster than the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could dredge it out.
The lone navigational channel by the Bonner Bridge is being encroached upon by a southward drifting Bodie Island. The corps has said it doesn't have the funding to keep the channel at its congressionally authorized 14 foot depth and has struggled to provide the 10 feet of depth most large trawlers need to safely travel through.
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