Beach Briefs 5.1.08

SNEADS FERRY - Techniques for trawling for shrimp have improved.

Words like Spectra webbing, Sapphire webbing and cambered steel doors were tossed around during a shrimp trawler fuel efficiency workshop at the Sneads Ferry Community Center on Tuesday evening to educate local shrimpers on the new gear.

Dragging a trawl, the heavy net used in harvesting shrimp, burns up a lot of additional fuel, and decreases revenues of shrimpers. With the ever-increasing prices of diesel fuel needed to power shrimp boats, fuel-saving innovative gear technologies have been developed to replace traditional wooden "doors" used to spread shrimp nets as they are pulled behind boats.

Specialists from Texas A&M University and from the Texas shrimp industry, in cooperation with North Carolina Sea Grant, held several informative workshops around coastal North Carolina to present a new type of trawl door and webbing being used by Gulf shrimp fisheries that has shown a documented 20 percent to 40 percent fuel savings over conventional gear.

Bob Hines, a fisheries specialist with Sea Grant in Morehead City, said he brought the workshop to Supply, Sneads Ferry, Morehead City, Bayboro and Swan Quarter this week in hopes that local shrimpers could see what is being done in the Gulf.

"Myriad ... forces, from increasing importation of shrimp from overseas to higher fuel prices, are making local shrimpers' lives difficult, and I wanted to take the opportunity, when it presented itself, to bring these guys up from Texas to tell the fellas what they're doing," Hines said. "This new type of shrimp trawler door was originally developed in Iceland, and has been adapted to the Gulf, and is being used in conjunction with a new types of netting... the door is much smaller than what has been traditionally used and has documented fuel savings."

Gary Graham, Mike Haby, Patrick Riley and Capt. Louis Stephenson presented the workshop.

Haby, with Texas A&M, explained the journey he and his team have taken since the project began in April 2005 at Western Seafood in Freeport, Texas. As part of a PowerPoint presentation, he compared traditional trawl doors with the results from the trials of the cambered steel doors and explained the details of the system and the benefits.

In addition to fuel efficiency, he explained there are also engine-oriented benefits and environmental benefits with the new technology.

New types of nets constructed with high-tech webbing, which adds to fuel efficiency, were also discussed.

After the presentation, attendees could view the new cambered doors and ask questions.

Several questioned its applicability in different depths of use - whether it was as efficient in shallow waters as in deep waters - and were told it had been effective in shallow water, 6 to 7 feet deep, and in deep water in the Gulf.

Sticker shock may be a problem for many local fishermen, since the larger cambered doors cost around $7,000.

Don Edens said he and his son own four shrimp boats between them. He said he knew of the new gear and felt it was something he could definitely use.

"The price is high and is a problem. We have two bigger boats; I have a 95-foot and a 50-foot, and he has an 85-foot and 65-foot boat, so we would need two sets of the highest priced ones," Edens said. "I know they're used all over the world ... and I see how they can be efficient compared to the big boards we currently use."

Hines would like to get the new gear on a couple of local shrimp boats.

"What I would like to do is develop a project and test it under our conditions, to get some of this gear on a couple of boats, if I can find some funds to do it," he said.

TOPSAIL BEACH - Coastal Planning and Engineering requested an extra $88,000 dollars from North Topsail Beach earlier this month to complete the beach nourishment plan for the town.

Now Topsail Beach, at the south part of Topsail Island is facing a similar request.

Topsail Beach commissioners unanimously agreed to give Steve Foster, its town manager, the authority to approve a contract addendum to CP&E for additional funds.

CP&E asked for an additional $62,060 due to unanticipated costs it has incurred as a result of changes required to the draft environmental impact study EIS and additional meetings scheduled.

Topsail Beach commissioners held a special session Tuesday to consider the contract addendum.

CP&E has also promised to provide the town with an itemized list of expenses through the end of June at its next regularly scheduled commissioner meeting May 7.

Shoreline Protection Advisory Committee Chairman Butch Parrish told the commissioners the agency requirements to get through the permitting process "seem to have a life of their own."

"It's been like a poker game, they push out a bet and we try to talk it down...," Parrish said. "The (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) ultimately resolves these, so what's been going on these last couple months is the Corps has been requiring extra meetings and extra procedures that weren't anticipated by any of us, specifically by Coastal Planning."

Ken Wilson with CP&E went over the history of all the addendums and changes since the original contract was signed in June 2006.

He explained out-of-scope costs incurred by CP&E include: $11,200 for two additional project development team meetings; $3,000 for additional engineering analysis; $13,000 in expenses as a result of things the Corps changed in the middle of the process; $11,900 for an impact analysis of one of its borrow sites; $4,000 to redesign parts of the borrow area; and $18,960 for additional documentation, habitat mapping and additional work on documents required by the Corps.

To date, Topsail Beach has invested more than $1 million on the project.

Town Manager Steve Foster said the town's beach nourishment fund has a $2.7 million balance, and this expense would come out of that fund.

Topsail Beach Mayor Howard Braxton said the additional costs are hard to explain to taxpayers.

"It is hard for us to justify this kind of money when we haven't even seen one grain of sand yet," Braxton said. "It's hard to answer taxpayers. We want to finish this thing and yet (agencies and the Corps of Engineers) keep coming up with another cost... Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel?"

Contact Topsail area reporter Suzanne Ulbrich at sulbrich@freedomenc.com or 910-219-8466. Visit www.jdnews.com to comment on this report.