Dredging Equipment Ready to Start Work

Crews are laying pipe Thursday in advance of a long-awaited dredging project to deepen bayside lagoons and channels in Ocean City, which are impassable to boat traffic at low tide.

Ocean City Business Administrator Mike Dattilo said Wednesday that a dredge has arrived from Maryland and the work is ready to begin.

Work crews on the water Thursday were laying pipe in a line between South Harbor Lagoon (near Tennessee Avenue), where the dredging will begin, and a spoils site on the marshes near 34th Street.

Dattilo said the city or the Coast Guard is expected shortly to release an advisory on boating and swimming in the work areas.

The project is expected to take two to three months to complete, and the city has a permitting window through November 30.

City Council in May awarded a $1.8 million contract to Hydro-Marine Construction Company of Hainesport, NJ, which had submitted the lowest of three competitive bids. Along with $194,634 in planning costs paid to Duffield Associates, the existing project should cost about $2 million.

The project wil include dredging in an area between 16th Street and 34th Street, including substantial parts of:

• Carnival Bayou Lagoon: Between 16th and 17th streets (the dredging in this area would include part of the bayfront heading toward 15th Street)
• Venetian Bayou Lagoon: Between 17th and 18th streets
• Sunny Harbor Lagoon: Between Arkansas and Walnut
• South Harbor Lagoon: Between Spruce and Tennessee
• Clubhouse/Bluefish Lagoon: Between Waterway Road and Clubhouse Drive

Work will begin at South Harbor Lagoon and proceed north from there, Dattilo said. The dredges will then return south to Clubhouse/Bluefish Lagoon off Waterway Road.

The DEP has tested the material to be dredged (as is required) and that the results are available at the City Clerk's Office. He said a summary of results show levels that are "not alarming" — though they do show some metals and some organics (including benzopyrene).

The areas would be dredged to a minimum depth of four feet (at low water) and average of five feet — with some spots six feet deep.