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fter two weeks of work, Oriental’s breakwater is being shored up. However, there’s been a switch in plans — and stones used — to achieve that bulk.

As TownDock.net reported last week, the US Army Corps of Engineers aims to fortify part of the jetty between the Neuse River and Oriental’s harbor. The plan called for installing 1500 one-ton armor stones.

Part of the breakwater work so far, where chunks of granite fill in the low spot of the jetty. The size of the stones used so far has raised some questions.

It appears, however, that much of the rock being put in to place so far is not the promised one-ton boulders, but rather, smaller chunks of granite.

This prompted one reader to write us to ask, “Did you see the last bunch of rock they put on the breakwater? It looks like gravel! If it stays like that the first storm will litter that stuff all over the harbor! What happened to the one ton pieces? Are they going to put big rock on top?”

A comparison of rock sizes. On right. some of the existing one-ton armor stones that have been in place at the breakwater for years; at left on the barge, smaller pieces of granite destined for the breakwater.

We had been wondering the same thing, too. Over the weekend, as the contractor’s crews worked, the clatter of rocks being loaded could be heard blocks away. It didn’t sound like the 2,000 pound boulders being eased in to place. A look at the breakwater confirmed that smaller stones were installed at the gap and amid the existing boulders.

On Monday morning, TownDock.net called Murray Degnan, an inspector with the Army Corps of Engineers. He was one of the Corps officials who toured the breakwater via boat a week earlier. (Photos of the boat tour past the breakwater can be seen, here.)

The smaller granite piled at the Point Pride Seafood staging area on February 16. The contractor’s barge pulls up to the staging area to get rock to bring out to the breakwater.

During that February 16 tour, a pile of smaller granite could be seen in the staging area outside the Point Pride Seafood operation. At that time, Corps of Engineer officials told Town Dock.net that the smaller rock had been delivered in error. The plan was to use the bigger one-ton rock because of its staying power in storms.

Pile of smaller stone as seen Monday morning at the staging area at Point Pride Seafood.

Monday morning, Mr. Degnan said that plan had changed and that the smaller stone was being used as an underlying layer. The bigger one-ton armor stone will be placed on top of that, he said.

We asked if the structural integrity of the breakwater would suffe from using the smaller rock. Mr. Degnan said that to the contrary, it made the breakwater stronger against wave action because the smaller stone could fill crevices that would otherwise be voids in the wall.

What the big stone looks like, as seen on February 16, at the breakwater of Oriental’s harbor. These one-ton stones had been placed by the contractor, Paul Howard, during the first week of the project before the switch was made to using the smaller stones as an underlying portion of the breakwater. A Corps of Engineers inspector says the one-ton stone will be placed atop the smaller stones.

He says that 800 tons of the smaller stone are being used on the Oriental breakwater. He estimates that instead of 1500 tons of the armor stone being placed on top, it will be about 1400 tons of the one-ton stone that will become part of the jetty.

Posted Thursday February 25, 2010 by Melinda Penkava