Posted on July 29, 2020
The state’s environmental restrictions on dredging in Olcott Harbor may be lifted as plans come into focus for construction next year of a long-awaited breakwall to protect the harbor from Lake Ontario’s rising waters.
The Department of Environmental Conservation will hold an online public meeting at noon Thursday to present its plans.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced in February that Olcott Harbor would be dredged in June 2021 as part of a statewide program to deepen 20 locations along the lake and the St. Lawrence River.
Olcott Harbor lies at the mouth of Eighteen Mile Creek. The entire creek, from Lockport to Olcott, was declared a federal Superfund site in 2012.
“It’s gotten better over the years,” Newfane Supervisor Timothy R. Horanburg said. “The last time we dredged and did all the sediment testing, we didn’t find any contaminants above limits.”
“We didn’t see the heavy metals and PCBs,” said Scott Collins of the Niagara County Soil and Water Conservation District. “This outreach event is to let people know that.”
The last dredging in the harbor occurred in 2014, and the federal navigation channel also was dredged in 1985 and 1997.
“We’re showing everything is much better than it was back in the ’80s,” Horanburg said.
The removal of the ban would affect only areas north of the bridge that carries Route 18 over the creek at the southern end of the harbor, Horanburg said.
The EPA’s planned dredging of creek sediment as part of its Superfund cleanup would occur several miles south of the harbor, a DEC spokesman said.
Thursday’s meeting can be accessed through the Eighteen Mile Creek Remedial Action Plan website.
Friday, town officials will meet with the Army Corps of Engineers to pitch a redesigned breakwall project that Horanburg said would be more effective than the one the state approved last October.
Horanburg said testing showed there is no bedrock to support the $14 million breakwall at its originally planned location, 200 feet north of the ends of the two federal piers at Olcott.
The new plan calls for the piers to be lengthened by about 100 feet, with walls of stone rubble to be built along both sides of both piers. Then, Horanburg said, at least four cells of sheet piling filled with concrete will be lined up in an east-west formation about 500 feet north of the new pier ends.
“We’ve already modeled it,” Horanburg said. “It will absorb waves from all directions.”
The east pier, which is 18 inches lower than the west pier, is often swamped by northeast winds that send waves into Olcott Harbor. Horanburg said the rubble walls will block those waves, and the walls also will make a good fish habitat.
The state’s October announcement also included a $1.7 million set of containment walls for the harbor and a $1.8 million berm to guard the residential area west of the harbor. The berm may be built from sediment dredged from the harbor.
Newfane is paying $680,000 toward the project, including a $500,000 state study grant announced in 2018, while Niagara County will chip in $221,000.
Source: buffalonews
