Posted on May 19, 2016
By Greg Buckley, Herald Times Reporter
Two Rivers City Council awarded a contract for dredging the outer harbor (between the piers and out into Lake Michigan) to Roen Salvage Co. of Sturgeon Bay at its May 16 meeting.
Roen’s low bid for dredging 22,500 cubic yards of material and trucking it to the city’s disposal site west of town was $663,900.
Total project cost is just more than $1.1 million. Seventy-nine percent of project costs are being funded through a Wisconsin Harbor Assistance Grant from DOT ($878,686); the city’s local match of $233,100 in being provided “in kind,” by providing a properly permitted and constructed disposal site for the dredged materials.
The bid came in slightly below budget, which should allow for removal of up to 1,500 cubic yards of additional material, if conditions warrant.
The dredging is intended to take the outer harbor channel down to 13 feet below ordinary low water datum, or about 15.5 feet below the current lake level.
Had this maintenance dredging been done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, like in the “good old days” (up through 2009), the dredged material — also known as “clean beach sand” — would have been pumped right over the north pier, into the water next to the public beach for beach nourishment.
But since the city is doing the work, and needs to get both federal and state permits, it is not possible to dispose of the sand in that manner. Instead, it goes into dump trucks and gets hauled to a diked disposal site, 5 miles away.
That, in my humble opinion, is insane. But it’s the only alternative available to the city, other than letting the channel clog up with sandbars (which would be even more insane).
In any event, we appreciate the state funding assistance for this work, to be completed in September.
Source: Herald Times Reporter
