Webhannet River

The Webhannet River is a river whose convert|8963|acre|km2|sing=on watershed is contained entirely within the town of Wells, Maine.cite web| url=http://www.wellsreserve.org/cmp/wcs/webhannet.pdf | title=Webhannet River Overview | accessdate=2007-12-12 ]

The river has five tributaries, including three with official names: Pope’s Creek, Depot Brook, and Blacksmith Brook. Draining a sandy outwash plain left by the last glacier, they run parallel to the southern Maine coastline behind the heavily developed barrier beaches of Wells and Drakes Island. The river flows into Wells Harbor, then empties between a pair of jetties into the Gulf of Maine.

The Webhannet watershed includes convert|1510|acre|km2 of land under conservation, including convert|1167|acre|km2 of estuary salt marsh and uplands protected by the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge.

Jetties

In 1961-62, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built two rubble-mound jetties to protect the 8-foot-deep channel to the harbor. Their height above low water ranges from convert|13|ft|m on their seaward ends to 17 feet (north jetty) and 16 feet (south jetty) at their landward ends. Their flat crowns are seven feet wide at the seaward end and five feet wide at the landward end.

Initially, the north jetty was convert|580|ft|m long, the south one convert|920|ft|m, and extended roughly from the inner harbor to just past the beaches. A 1-ft-thick bedding layer and core of 3-in. to convert|150|lb|abbr=on stone was covered with a double layer of stones weighing a minimum of two tons on the landward section and three tons on the seaward sections, for a total of 20,000 tons of stone. The cost for placing the stone was $95,600.

In 1962-63, the north jetty was extended convert|200|ft|m seaward.

In 1965, the north and south jetties were extended seaward 1,225 and convert|1300|ft|m|abbr=on,respectively. Extensions were parallel to one another, spaced convert|425|ft|m|abbr=onapart, and terminated at a depth of eight feet below the low-water mark.cite paper
author = Francis E. Sargent, Robert R. Bottin, Jr., Coastal Engineering Research Center
title = TECHNICAL REPORT REMR-CO-3, CASE HISTORIES OF CORPS BREAKWATER AND JETTY STRUCTURES, Report 7, NEW ENGLAND DIVISION
version =
publisher = U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
date = January 1989
url = http://chl.erdc.usace.army.mil/Media/4/4/6/TechReport7.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2007-12-13 ]

External links

* [http://www.wellsreserve.org/index.htm Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve]
* [http://www.wellsreserve.org/cmp/wcs/webhannet.pdf Map of Webhannet River estuary]
* [http://chl.erdc.usace.army.mil/Media/4/4/6/TechReport7.pdf U.S. Army Corps of Engineers description and drawing of Wells Harbor and its jetties, January 1989, pp. 31-32]

References