Posted on December 18, 2023
In one of the great on-again-off-again local projects of this century, dredging looks to be coming back to the Assawoman Canal and White Creek early next year.
DNREC pulled the plug on the once-started project earlier this year due to environmental restrictions. There wasn’t any certainty as to when, or if, the project would resume — until earlier this week, when DNREC announced it would start at the southern end of the Assawoman Canal in February, and then move into White Creek when that first part is done. The entire project is expected to be done by late winter or early spring of 2024.
Tom Fowler, owner of Ocean View Marina, said he is “thrilled they are coming back and that they will finish White Creek and get the canal dredged. … It shows their commitment to getting this project done.”
Fowler said he is allowing the dredging company, ResilientSeas, to use his property to tie its barges during the project.
“There was some flipflopping back and forth last week,” said Sean McCann, operations manager for ResilientSeas. “To dredge it, not to dredge it. … In all my years in this business — and I’m going on 17 years — I have never seen it before, but it doesn’t make me angry. … Stuff like this happens.”
It does, as baffling and frustrating as it can often be. But the important thing is that it appears that this is finally getting done, and DNREC said approximately 80,000 cubic yards of shoaled sediment will be removed from the two waterways to restore White Creek and Assawoman Canal to “previous depths for safer boating and recreational use.”
It’s like Christmas came early for boaters and kayakers.
