Plans are in place for the Army Corps of Engineers to complete a $2.5 million dredge of Mattituck Inlet this fall, at the end of shorebird season, following a meeting last month between the Corps and the Mattituck Parks District.

The dredge will clear about 10,000 cubic yards of sand from the northern side of the DEC boat ramp on Naugles Drive, as well as the southern side of Bailie Beach, according to Mattituck Park District clerk Chris Shashkin.

All of the dredged sand will be transported by pipe to the northern side of Bailie Beach facing the Long Island Sound. Equipment will be brought in from Bailie Beach Road, after the guard rail is temporarily removed, Shashkin said, and bulldozers will flatten and move the sand to where it is needed most. 

The video below highlights the areas to be dredged.

The inlet — a tidal waterway connecting Long Island Sound to Mattituck Creek — was naturally occurring but often shallowed or shifted due to tides, storms and sedimentation, before the Corps built rock jetties at the mouth of the inlet in the early 1900s. The east and west jetties are about 1,020 and 1,320 feet, respectively, according to digital measurements taken in 2001.

The jetties disrupted littoral transport of sand along the shorelines, which is why more updrift sand gets deposited on Breakwater Beach and the beach is much narrower, from downdrift, at Bailie Beach.

The channel was maintenance dredged of about 5,000 cubic yards of sand last fall, according to federal records. Prior to that, the Corps dredged a massive 100,000 cubic yards there in 2014; about 14,000 cubic yards in 2004 and about 13,000 in 1990.