Posted on July 17, 2018
Town Council decides to finish project to deepen lake
CAROLINA BEACH — The town may resume its stalled project to dredge the bottom of Carolina Beach Lake after the town council decided Tuesday night to finish the job.
“I personally want to see the full dredge,” Mayor Pro Tem Leann Pierce said before the council voted to proceed at Tuesday night’s meeting.
The original project would have dredged the lake to a depth of up to 8 feet — most of it was about 18 inches deep — to provide more room for stormwater during heavy rains and prevent algae blooms.
But the project was halted late last year after Army officials with the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point, or MOTSU, told the town to stop placing material removed from the lake bottom on undeveloped land owned by the military base and leased by the town.
Although located across the Cape Fear River in Brunswick County, Sunny Point owns a large section of land along the western edge of Carolina Beach to act as a buffer in case of an accident at the military port.
Almost half of the project was completed before the Army asked the town to stop.
Town Manager Michael Cramer said the project is estimated to cost anywhere from $1.6 million to $2.5 million — the town has already spent about $1.47 million on the project. He said firmer estimates are difficult to obtain without issuing a formal request for bids.
“They’re very reluctant to give us costs before they see a hard bid document,” he said of construction companies. “You want the contractor to give you the estimate.”
Cramer told the council that the project, which could cost as much as $4 million total when the original project and a resumed project are added together, was originally budgeted for $2.9 million. He said, though, that council members could choose to scale back the project to save some costs and that the town was able to save nearly $500,000 on another project that it could apply to the lake project.
He said the town hopes it could restart the project in November and have it finished by July 2019, or possibly in as few as four months.
Town officials have said they are pursuing easements to access land the town owns across Snow’s Cut and to the south of the former Coast Guard LORAN-C transmission station, saying the spot could accept material from the lake bottom.
Cramer said Coast Guard officials have, so far, said they would allow only a temporary road through its property. He said the costs to build a road to the town’s property would cost about $136,000.
Meanwhile, Cramer said, MOTSU officials have said the material moved to its land has to be moved. Cramer said a contractor is interested in purchasing the material from the town for about $30,000.
Source: StarNews Online
