Posted on May 4, 2022
Property owners within the Smith Mountain Project lake boundaries have a few more weeks where they will be unable to dredge the depth of their lakefronts, as the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources conducts its annual prohibition of local dredging between Feb. 15 and June 15.
But by the time summer arrives, residents will once again be able to dredge the lake beds surrounding their properties.
The dredging ban takes place each year for four months in order to assist the spawning of various fish that reproduce during the late winter and spring months in shallow water lake beds. Dredging would seriously damage the ability of these native fish to reproduce during their spawning seasons, and the state prohibits late winter and spring dredging in order to ensure that the fish populations in the lake will not be diminished over the course of time.
