Posted on June 2, 2020
PADUCAH – You can’t see it now because of high river levels, but under the water a large landmass made up of silt is growing by the Transient Boat Dock in Paducah.
“It’s an infrequent thing,” says Paducah City Engineer Rick Murphy.
Murphy said the issue has grown over the last few years. Sky Six video from 2017 shows the landmass was small, but just two years later, it had grown tremendously toward the transient boat dock. Now with the help of FEMA money, the city hopes to finally get rid of most of it.
“We’ve been able to convince FEMA that flooding has created this,” said Murphy. “Let’s say the river was to stay at a fixed elevation we probably wouldn’t be having this problem.”
The city was awarded a FEMA grant to help pay for dredging the landmass. FEMA is giving Paducah the money on the basis that flooding caused the silt build up.
The City is budgeting $5.5 million dollars for the project. FEMA will reimburse the city for 75 percent of the cost of the project, the state of Kentucky will pay 12 percent, and the city will pay the rest. Murphy hopes to spend less than $5.5 million, but at this point they don’t know the actual cost.
Transient Boat Dock”Dredging could range in cost anywhere from seven to 30 dollars a yard, we don’t know that number yet because we don’t have a permit that directs us on how we are to dispose of the materials,” said Murphy.
Even after dredging, silt build up could always be a problem by the transient boat dock.
“We’re always gonna have that little island,” Murphy said. “It’s not our intent to remove all that material that’s not our intention because that would be very expensive to do,” says Murphy.
In September of 2019, Paducah City Manager Jim Arndt told Local 6 that they were hoping to have the University of Kentucky do a study on the issue. Local 6 recently asked for a copy of that study through an open records request. The City said no study was ever contracted out, and that they were still collecting data.
Murphy said they hope to begin dredging by the end of this summer.
Source: wpsdlocal6
