Posted on August 15, 2016
By Jacob Owens, Cecil Whig
After contending with a difficult summer due to bridge restrictions and an increasingly shallow basin, town residents and businesses may be in for longer days ahead.
On Tuesday, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Tim Boyle told the Whig that funding for dredging of the south side’s basin was not included in the Philadelphia District’s appropriation for fiscal year 2017, which begins Oct. 1. Town officials have been discussing the urgent need to dredge the basin, which allows just a few feet of clearance at low tide, since November, but this recent admission lowers the likelihood of it happening this fall — the primetime for dredging projects.
Boyle said that all hope isn’t lost, however, as cost shifts and project deferments could always open the possibility of newfound funding among unrestricted dollars.
“There is a possibility, but there isn’t a guarantee,” he added. “It’s a matter of what’s available at what time.”
After it was last dredged in 2010, the roughly 1,500-foot-wide basin had a maximum depth of 10 to 12 feet, but now parts of the basin are as shallow as 3 feet at low tide. Large boats with larger drafts cannot fit in the basin, and with an average boat size of 35 feet holding a 3- to 3.5-foot draft, even smaller boats face the risk of running aground. Many larger boats are avoiding the Chesapeake Inn Restaurant & Marina at low-tide due to this concern and although the hotspot can accommodate some larger boats in deeper slips, the number of those spots is decreasing, owner Gianmarco Martuscelli said.
“I’ll be making some phone calls to people who promised the town that it would happen to find out where the ball was dropped,” Martuscelli added Tuesday. “There were a lot of people in this town who were assuming that it would happen this October.”
The Whig was unable to reach Mayor Dean Geracimos, who has made the basin’s dredging a priority over the last year by organizing meetings with stakeholders and contacting U.S. Rep. Andy Harris’ office, after learning of the update Tuesday afternoon.
The latest news stings especially hard as the town has already secured a $100,000 grant from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to pay for its dredging expenses and Martuscelli reported that his business was prepared to pay its roughly $60,000 portion. That leaves the Corps to pick up its estimated $420,000 portion — an amount that may have to vie against other needs with limited dollars.
The Philadelphia District will receive $21.6 million in the fiscal year 2017 appropriation approved by Congress for C&D Canal projects. Much of that funding will be spent on maintenance dredging of the canal and its approach channels in order to continue feeding increasingly larger shipping traffic to the Port of Baltimore.
It also funds continued work at the Pearce Creek Dredge Material Containment Area in Earleville, where a synthetic liner is being installed to prevent further contamination of local residential wells and allow disposal of dredge spoils as early as the fall of 2017. Corps officials have been working to open a new disposal site as others fill up around the state.
Should the Corps be unable to locate funding for the basin dredging, locals may be without a way to navigate the lengthy permitting process and expensive work.
“We could never do the dredging by ourselves,” Martuscelli said, explaining that the process of dredging, essentially vacuuming the collected silt at the basin’s bottom, and the basin’s topography means you cannot skip one area to do another. “It’s all got to be done together.”
Martuscelli, who has previously said he believes the Chesapeake Inn serves as an anchor store of sorts for the town’s mainly arts and boutique shops, said having to go through another summer with a shallow basin would have a “huge impact.”
“We’ll all struggle. People won’t spend the night on their boats and walk up into town to spend money,” he said. “It’s going to affect people. It’s hard to pinpoint it, but you will see it.”
Source: Cecil Whig
