Since our last update on the nearly shut down Oregon Inlet, the Virginia Pilot is now reporting an additional $2.25 million has been allocated to the dredging project. The funds for the project were tucked into a $5 billion corps spending plan released this week and was unnoticed by officials until Friday.

Oregon Inlet

The $2.25 million is in addition to about $4.1 million that had been originally allocated by Congress to dredge the inlet in fiscal year 2011, which ends Sept. 30. Most of that money has been spent.

While this is great news for the Outer Banks and its large commercial fishing industry, this is a far cry from a more permeanent solution that will be needed to prevent the rapid shoaling in the popular waterway.Roger Bullock, chief of navigation for the corps’ Wilmington district said that Oregon Inlet requires at least $15 million per year to maintain at its Congressionally-authorized depth.

“Unless you were consistently getting that amount, you can’t say anything other than it being a short-term solution,” Bullock said.

After the corps mobilized more resources to dredge Oregon Inlet out of an emergency situation in April, less than $500,000 remained in the budget. Next year’s funding outlook is more dire than 2011’s. President Barack Obama’s proposed budget allocates $1 million to Oregon Inlet dredging, and a ban on federal budget earmarks casts doubt on that number increasing, Bullock said.

The decision to increase the project budget was made by administrators at corps headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Because the corps can move money among projects and from year to year, there’s no guarantee that any of it will carry over to the winter fishing season.

A corps-operated side-cast dredge is expected to return to the inlet May 25 in which  the crew will work 12 hours a day every other week.

Meanwhile, the crisis this spring has renewed conversations about the need for a jetty to stabilize the inlet, an idea that was debated for decades before federal agencies killed it in 2003 because of environmental concerns. But until the Herbert C. Bonner bridge is replaced in 2015, coastal engineering experts say, dredging is the only way to keep Oregon Inlet consistently open for navigation.

What do you think? Should we continue to spend millions in short-term efforts when we know a permanent solution is necessary? Can it wait until 2015?