The Port of Port Orford on Oregon's south coast is filling with sand. That's prompted
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Citizens to Keep the Port in Port Orford
The town of Port Orford, on Oregon’s south coast, may soon be without a port.
That has worried residents rallying the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge their navigation channel.
A jetty the Army Corps built decades ago protects Port Orford from waves. It also causes the Port to fill with sand. The Army Corps used to dredge the Port every year to maintain a 16-foot channel for fishing boats.
Tom Calvanese is with the group Citizens to Keep the Port in Port Orford. He says it’s been two years since the Army Corps has dredged. And now that channel is just one-foot deep.
”We have to wait for a high tide to provide a couple of feet of depth that gives a boat that doesn’t draw too much draft just enough room to scootch out into the channel and go to sea,” he says.
Residents are rallying Wednesday morning with wheelbarrows and buckets, to dig out what they can. A spokeswoman says the Army Corps doesn’t have the money to dredge Port Orford. Congress has cut in half the corps’ budget for small ports.
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