OCEAN CITY, Md--The US Army Corps of Engineers is collecting data for a deep- rooted problem in Worcester County. A hole has formed in the vicinity of Ocean City's inlet and it's now 50 feet deep. Officials say it's causing shoreline erosion and it could eventually destroy a nearby community. "We think the flood current is coming in at a really high rate, it goes right up against the shoreline there, and it doesn't have anywhere else to go and it circles and and scours and creates a really big deep hole," says Dr. Heidi Wadman, researcher for the US Army Corps of Engineers. A deep hole, officials say could eventually destroy both a nearby residential community and parts of Stinky Beach. But to stop that from happening, officials are examining the hole. They're collecting data like water samples and sediments from the seafloor. Once the data is collected, it's taken to Andrew Roach and his team, who's already come up with an idea on how to fix the hole. "Preliminary we looked at taking dredge material, perhaps from the inlet and placing that into the scour hole and then covering that with rock to keep that sediment in place," says Roach. Officials say they'll wrap up data collection by early next year. Their next plan is to introduce their official plans on how they'll fix the hole.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Examines Scour Hole in Ocean City
