Posted on June 13, 2017
By William F. West, DailyAdvance.com
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official said he’s hoping the Dismal Swamp Canal will be completely reopen to boaters by this coming autumn.
“I wish it was quicker,” Joel Scussel, the Corps’ Norfolk-based project manager for the Intracoastal Waterway, said over the phone Thursday afternoon.
The Corps closed the canal, the nation’s oldest operating man-made waterway, to boating traffic last autumn following major storms, including Hurricane Matthew in October. The Corps responded by removing between 350-400 trees from both the waterway and a large feeder ditch on the Virginia side of the Great Dismal Swamp.
The feeder ditch extends from Lake Drummond east to Arbuckle Landing and near the western terminus of Ballahack Road.
The problem is that due to the storm water rushing in from refuges, fields and smaller ditches, large amounts of sand and sediment ended up being deposited in three areas.
They are: Just northeast of the Deep Creek Lock in Chesapeake, Va.; at Arbuckle Landing; and at Turner’s Cut just below the South Mills Lock in northern Camden County.
Scussel said that a Corps crew has been dredging in the Arbuckle Landing area since late April and that, “They predict they’ll be done probably in three to four more weeks at the feeder ditch.”
Scussel said after the Corps crew completes work at Arbuckle Landing, they’ll be deployed to start dredging at Turner’s Cut. He said work at Turner’s Cut will start next month.
Scussel said a crew from the Corps’ Wilmington District will be deployed to work northeast of Deep Creek Lock, with the plan being to start work approximately June 16 and finish approximately six days later.
The Dismal Swamp Canal is supposed to have at least a six-foot operating depth. Norfolk District engineers used surveys of the canal to check for additional deposits and other obstructions before starting the dredging work.
Scussel said the area of the canal just northeast of Deep Creek Lock was found to be approximately 4.8 feet, but he said the area of the canal at Arbuckle Landing was found to be a “plus one.” He said the area at Turner’s Cut wasn’t much better, at only 2.5 feet.
He attributed the problem south of the South Mills Lock to inflow from a creek that feeds into the canal from the historically flood-prone Bunker Hill and Old Swamp Road areas.
“Turners Cut was a surprise to me,” he said of the amounts of deposits in that area.
The Corps, in a prepared statement in late May, said after the dredging is complete, the Norfolk district’s engineers will evaluate whether to open the canal at a restricted depth until the six feet target is reached.
Meantime, Melissa Jensen, who along with her husband operates the Pelican Marina just on the Camden Causeway side of the Pasquotank River bridges, said Thursday afternoon their business has certainly felt the impact of lack of boater traffic.
“We had no fall transient season – and of course we had no spring transient season,” Jensen said. “We pretty much lost a year’s worth of transient traffic.”
Asked whether she and her husband have calculated a dollar amount, in terms of the effect on the bank account, Jensen said with a laugh, “No, I’m afraid to look.”
The Jensens bought the Pelican Marina from Halstead Venture Partners in July 2016 and began restoration work.
“We didn’t worry too much about it (the effects of the stormy weather) over the fall because we were remodeling the store,” she said. “We were really not ready for them (boating traffic).”
She said she and her husband could have accommodated boaters at the dock, but she said they concentrated on fixing up the retail part of the operation this winter and were looking forward to spring time boaters.
Elizabeth City City Manager Rich Olson was asked Thursday afternoon whether he, his staff and fellow municipal officials are worried about the lack of boater traffic and boater dollars flowing into the Harbor of Hospitality.
“We average between 2,000 and 2,200 boats a season, or seasons, since there’s two,” Olson said. “We have seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of people spending the night here in Elizabeth City.”
Source: DailyAdvance.com
