Posted on July 12, 2023
A long-awaited channel-dredging project in Fenwick Island may be inching closer to reality.
At a town Dredge Committee meeting on Wednesday, June 28, Committee Chairman William Rymer said that, although the committee has not met as a whole since January, there has been much discussion behind the scenes regarding a possible site for dredge spoils.
Of the three possibilities for spots to deposit the dredged material, one has risen to the top, after it seemed to no longer be in the running. That is property off of Route 54 slated for development by the Carl M. Freeman Companies. The committee’s discussions with the developer came to a halt when Freeman announced the timing of the proposed dredge project no longer meshed with their plans for the property.
However, talks between the Town and the developer are now moving forward again.
“There is, hopefully, good news in the offing,” Rymer said.
Freeman has requested further sediment analysis of the proposed area to be dredged — two channels leading into the Little Assawoman Bay that have become so silted-over that navigation in and out of the bay from the Town’s canals is increasingly hazardous.
Steve Bagnull of Anchor QEA LLC, a consultant for the Town on the project, said during last week’s meeting that the samples have been taken and have been sent to a lab for analysis.
Rymer said the extra testing is “to the Town’s benefit” because “we’d much rather know that we have problems than pumping it up and then discovering something.”
“The biggest issue is clearly that the material is going to be used for residential development” and must be free of contaminants, Rymer said. He added that attorneys for Freeman have been meeting with the town solicitor to hammer out the final details on an agreement between the two entities on the use of the site.
The next step would be applications to federal and state agencies for permits to dredge the channels. Rymer urged committee members to start sending letters to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in support of the project, citing safe navigation and higher home values as talking points.
“There’s a lot of reasons why this is a great project,” Rymer said. “We’re trying to get everything done so when we get those permits we can start dredging.”
The window for dredging the channels is limited by the presence of summer flounder in the project area. Tony Pratt, former state director of shoreline and waterway management, said the prime period for dredging activity is October through the end of January.
Pratt said the state’s bond bill — which funds projects throughout the state — contains $7.5 million for shoreline and waterway projects. Whether the Fenwick Island channel project is one was unclear at Coastal Point press time.
Rymer said the committee would work with Town Manager Patricia Schuchman “to figure out what we have to do to check all the boxes to make sure we have a successful bidding process.”
One of the issues that needs to be addressed, Rymer said, is that the area of the Freeman property now slated to receive the dredged material is much farther from the water than the original site.
“There is some work needed there to get it pulled together,” Bagnull said.
