Posted on May 22, 2018
By John Kline, Goshen News
Goshen Dam Pond Dredging Advisory Board members met Thursday at the Goshen Municipal Annex Building to finalize plans for a proposed revamp of the recently stalled Goshen Dam Pond dredging project.
Thursday’s meeting served as a final question-and-answer session between the board and the project’s major stakeholders prior to the project’s rebidding slated for later this month.
Long plagued with delays since its inception more than five years ago, project stakeholders appeared ready to finally get the project off the ground last October when, after much negotiation, a $1.1 million contract was approved with the Michigan-based dredging company Grow America to begin Phase II of the long-awaited dredging project.
However, the project hit another major snag in March when it was announced by the city that the $1.1 million contract with Grow America had fallen through, requiring that the project be rebid.
The idea for the dam pond dredging project was first brought to the public in early 2013 by members of the Elkhart River Restoration Association, a local nonprofit founded in 1983 with the goal of studying the needs of the Elkhart River and its watershed.
According to the ERRA, the 140-acre pond behind the Goshen dam has become filled with sediment over the course of its more than 150-year existence. The silting has resulted in a reduction in the pond’s depth, the group says, and has also created significant aquatic vegetation growth. The shallow water also limits the recreational use of the pond and has resulted in degradation of fish and wildlife habitat, according to the group.
Faced with such a predicament, the city, Elkhart County and pond property owners formed a partnership several years ago aimed at securing enough funding to implement a large-scale dredging project for the pond.
Serving as the guiding hand of the project is the Goshen Dam Pond Dredging Advisory Board, which includes David Troup, a dam pond property owner and president of the ERRA, Adam Scharf, a Goshen city councilman appointed by the city, and Chris Martin, a dam pond property owner appointed by the county.
FINISHING TOUCHES
During their meeting Thursday, board members worked with consulting firm Abonmarche to iron out the final particulars of the revamped plan prior to its rebidding, touching on topics such as desired dredging location, dredging depth and permit reapplication needs.
Among the more notable discussions to take place Thursday involved some confusion related to the desired depth of the proposed dredging.
While discussing the topic, it became clear that some of the project’s stakeholders thought the project would involve dredging approximately 6 feet of silt from the pond bed at each of the various areas targeted for dredging, while others though the project called for dredging those areas to a water depth of 6 feet.
The group agreed the project should involve dredging the targeted areas to a water depth of 6 feet, as such a plan would keep the pond bottom more uniform while still reducing the silt to a depth that should keep future water plant growth in check.
In a related matter, board members agreed that, should funding allow, it may be worth looking at possibly dredging the mouth of the pond at a depth greater than the 6 feet agreed upon for the remainder of the project, as that greater depth could serve as a kind of makeshift silt trap to help keep the incoming silt from spreading throughout the newly-dredged areas of the pond.
Board members were also informed Thursday that the permit secured for the project through the Indiana Department of Natural Resources will expire shortly, and members would need to apply for a new permit.
Given the need, Abonmarche engineer Brad Mosness suggested that it may be in the board’s best interest to seek approval for both hydraulic and mechanical dredging, which would allow the city to seek the most economical bid for the project by increasing the pool of interested contractors.
PROJECT TIMELINE
According to Dustin Sailor, director of public works for the city, the timeline for rebidding the project requires that the city first receive permission from the Goshen Board of Public Works and Safety to submit a request for proposals to interested contractors. Barring any unforeseen issues, that should happen during the board’s May 21 meeting, he said.
Once permission has been granted to submit the RFPs, the project will be put out for bid later this month. All bids will then be due back to the city by June 11, when the submitted bids will be opened and read by the Board of Works.
Following that 2 p.m. meeting, the plan would be for the dredging advisory board to meet a final time, potentially at 3 p.m. that same day, again in the City Annex Building, to review the submitted bids and decide on a path forward, Sailor explained.
Should a bid package be agreed upon by the board at that meeting, Sailor said a project contract could be awarded as early as the next Board of Works meeting, likely on June 18.
ABOUT THE PLAN
As initially proposed, project stakeholders had hoped to have approximately 34 acres of the pond dredged to an average depth of 6 feet. The plan involved dividing the pond into six sections that would be dredged according to priority and as funding allowed. The dredged silt would then be transported to farmland along Kercher Road where it would be spread out to dry.
City officials put the project out for bid in early 2015, and Grow America was selected as the contractor of choice with a low bid of $2.6 million.
Phase I of the project, which included development of the overall dredging plan, all necessary permitting, and design of the confined sediment placement site, access road, and staging area, was approved by the Board of Works in January 2016 at a cost of $143,500.
At the time, it was anticipated that a contract for Phase II of the project, which includes the actual dredging work, would be finalized with Grow America later that year once all permitting had been completed and additional project funding secured. However, fundraising issues would eventually force the group to take a step back and reevaluate the overall scope and design of the proposed dredging.
Not counting the funding already spent on Phase I of the project, the group had secured just over $1 million for the actual dredging of the pond prior to the announcement that Grow America had pulled out of the deal.
Source: Goshen News
