Posted on April 19, 2018
By Stan Gorton, The Islander
The basin at the port of Cape Jervis is getting deeper day by day as the dredging operation by the new Kangaroo Island Connect ferry services progresses.
Dredging at the port began on Friday, April 13, to deepen the basin and allow the KI Connect ferry service to start service.
KI Connect managing director David Harris on Tuesday, April 17 said dredging had progressed well on Monday and was again going to plan on Tuesday.
“It’s going really well and if everything goes to plan, we should be finished by Wednesday evening or Thursday morning,” Mr Harris said.
Bad weather on Friday and forecast for last weekend did delay progress, but the dredge operators were now making up for lost time.
KI Connect was now hoping to be able conduct some testing with its ferry James Cowell this weekend. Crews had been getting the vessel in ship-shape form for operations.
The company was keen to start limited, twice-daily service as soon as next week, once the basin at the port of Cape Jervis was deep enough and any bugs with the vessel and its berthing had been ironed out.
The idea would be to run an early morning service and then a late-afternoon service, timed with public transport arriving at Cape Jervis and passengers would be walking into the ferry, he said.
Final approvals for the dredging from the Environmental Protection Authority and Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) were issued earlier this month.
Mr Harris said 50-tonne, long-reach excavator excavator had been delayed at a previous job at Kangaroo Creek but arrived last week, ready to start working.
The excavator over the last few days had been digging with its 23-metre arm, with officials from the EPA monitoring the operation.
Licensing conditions stipulated that the operation should not increase the turbidity of the water outside the silt curtain by 10 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU).
“To give you some idea, a glass of chardonnay is 1 NTU,” Mr Harris said.
Locals from Cape Jervis had shown great interest and were lining the hill watching the operation.
“Let’s just say there’s been quite a lot of local interest,” he said.
Source: The Islander
