Dredging starts in Green Harbor; more to come in 2021

MARSHFIELD — For Brant Rock residents, the first sign of summer isn’t the open ice cream shops or flip-flops hitting the sand. It’s the 160-foot dredging vessel that takes over Green Harbor.

Almost every year, the Army Corps of Engineers comes to Marshfield to remove tens of thousands of cubic yards of sediment from the harbor channel, something that happens only every 15 years or so in other harbors. The rapid buildup of sediment can be attributed to misaligned jetties, Harbormaster Mike DiMeo said. The buildup of sand keeps some boats from being able to enter Green Harbor.

The dredging started April 15 and the Corps will work through mid-May. DiMeo said the project is about 80 percent complete.

“This year we started about two weeks earlier to get a jump on the season,” he said. “There is less boating traffic, so it makes it a little safer for the crew and everybody else.”

The harbormaster said the Army Corps of Engineers brought in new equipment that’s dredging more efficiently than any other year in the last decade.

“This is probably the best the entrance to the channel has looked in the last 10 years,” he said. “We’re very, very pleased.”

While the harbor entrance is usually 100 feet wide, the width was down to 50 feet and the depth was down to 4 feet at low tide – half of what it should be. The sediment makes it harder for vessels to navigate the harbor, a popular home base for commercial fishermen and lobstermen.

“We did have boats go aground,” DiMeo said. “It’s not a big harbor, but we’re pretty active.”

DiMeo said the Army Corps of Engineers recently finished one of the studies it conducted to find out why Green Harbor needs to be dredged so often. He said the results showed it is a combination of misaligned jetties, constant shoaling from storms and sand that blows in from the south over the west jetty.

He said the town is talking about putting up fences to keep the sand from migrating, and that the ultimate goal is to realign the jetties once and for all.

DiMeo said the town is working to obtain permits to dredge the entire harbor in 2021.

Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com.

_{Source: patriotledger.com}