Posted on July 27, 2017
By Amanda Oglesby, app.com
Waterfront homeowners are finally getting the help they say they have needed for years: The New Jersey Department of Transportation said it will dredge five channels in the Forked River area.
For years waterfront homeowners on the Forked River struggled to get their boats through the channel’s shallow sections and into Barnegat Bay. It was no easy task as shoals left some docks completely landlocked and stranded boats on sandbars.
On Monday, the state Department of Transportation gave these homeowners the solution they have wanted for more than two years: Dredging of the river, its middle branch and nearby spur, the south spur and what is commonly called the “Elks” channel, located near the Lacey Elks Lodge, will be dredged beginning in early to mid-August.
The dredging is part of a $2.5 million spending plan to open the Forked River and Barnegat Bay channels to boat traffic once again.
Residents have said the shoals were the result of the Forked River’s westward flow out of Barnegat Bay toward the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant. The river feeds the immense water intakes at the plant, which consume 1.4 billion gallons of water daily. A portion of its intake — 662.4 million gallons a day — is used to cool the plant. The remainder is used to dilute the warm water when it is expelled into Oyster Creek, to the south of the Forked River.
Residents blamed that flow for leaving sandbars in the river bed that in some places were only 6 inches below the surface. Some private docks were completely landlocked by sand and mud.
Once the project begins, dredging will continue during daylight hours seven days a week and will require the placement of a floating and submerged pipeline in the channels.
Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company of Oak Brook, Illinois, will perform the work.
“The public is advised to be aware of and stay alert to the pipeline, buoys, dredge and other equipment during this time,” department officials wrote in a news release and asked boaters to avoid the dredging equipment.
Source: app.com
