On Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 3:36 PM Dave Shearer <harbormaster@gslmarina.com> wrote:

Many people know that there is a lot of silt that has built up in the marina mouth. This happened two weeks ago when we had an unusually strong northerly front pass over the marina. The mouth, which should be nearly 6 feet deep filled in with 2 to 3 feet of silt trapping many boats in the marina. This is unfortunate and has impeded many from getting out.

I have been working on dredging this marina now for nearly 20 years. It isn’t a simple process. There are many laws, rules and regulations involved. There are many state agencies that get involved in the permitting process. And then there is the US Army Corp of Engineers that also has to sign off on any efforts and plans to dredge. This can make the process very slow.

Dredging is not as simple as hiring a long-reach excavator. When we dredged in 2008 we used two long-reach excavators. But they weren’t able to reach out far enough to effectively dredge the mouth. We also had to hire a barge to put the excavators on. Material was removed from the mouth and put on the barge. Then the barge was brought over to the breakwall where the material was removed. This was AFTER Army Corp of Engineers signed off on the project. And it cost a significant amount of money.

In 2017 we dredged again. And this was after four years of finding money, working with agencies for permitting, getting sign-off from Army Corp of engineers, hiring a company and then dredging. Four years. To not go through this process will lead to potential jail time and THOUSANDS of dollars of fines . . . per day!

Four years ago, with efforts from the State and Federal governments, money was found for dredging after we saw the lake dropping again. For four years, the powers-that-be have been meeting regularly going through the process that needs to happen in order to dredge. While we were going through the process the United States Supreme Court came down with a significant ruling that had an impact on the dredging project. Although the ruling gave us many more options for dredging, it took some time for Army Corp of Engineers to understand the ruling and re-write their rules.

My understanding is that we are very far along in the dredging permitting process. Hopefully we will not have to wait much longer.

I have been trying to get some short-term solutions but most of those short-term solutions that we have used in the past are no longer available to us or won’t be available to us for a year. That has left me trying some other ideas with some success.

The point here is that dredging is not a simple solution that we can hire a long-reach excavator and throw the spoils up on the breakwall or put it back in the lake somewhere else. We can’t.

I’m so sorry that we are in this situation from that wind storm. We have been working on dredging for four years and will continue to work on it until we start dredging. I will keep you posted when I know something more concrete.

Dave

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