Posted on April 11, 2017
By Aleese Kopf, Palm Beach Daily News
Work to create channels in the Lake Worth Lagoon to connect private docks in Palm Beach to the Intracoastal Waterway is on hold until officials agree on a site to dump the dredged muck.
Palm Beachers along the lagoon want to dredge three waterways from Midtown to the South End. The north channel is located between Everglades Island and the Southern Boulevard Causeway, the central one is south of the causeway to Widener’s Curve and the south waterway is south of Widener’s to north of Sloan’s Curve. The project would create about 2.1 miles of residential access channels and remove about 55,000 cubic yards of sediment.
The town is handling the state and federal permitting process, but lakefront residents are paying for the $1.2 million project. The Palm Beach Intracoastal Neighbors group includes John Scarpa, Terry Allen Kramer, Susan Miller, Joel Pashcow, William Koch, Charles B. Johnson, Nasser Kazeminy, Martin Gruss, Mary Ourisman, Earle Mack, Geoffrey Caraboolad and Anna Murdoch-Mann.
While the proposal to dredge channels hasn’t received backlash, some West Palm Beach residents and organizations oppose the disposal site. Town Coastal Coordinator Rob Weber said he’s working with the state and Palm Beach County to find a “suitable disposal site.”
An updated proposal is scheduled to go before Town Council on Thursday.
In February, the engineering consultant for the project, Applied Technology & Management, sent a letter to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection specifying where in the Intracoastal it plans to dump the dredged material for the new channels. The company proposed disposing the material in a location known as John’s Hole, a “sump” in the water on the West Palm Beach side of the lagoon west of Sloan’s Curve and John’s Island.
The company also asked the state for permission to extend the length of the north channel an additional 1,902 feet to pass by President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and to extend the central channel by 865 feet to connect three additional properties. The contractor also would add a small turning basin just north of the Southern Boulevard Bridge.
Tom Twyford, president of the 1,400-member West Palm Beach Fishing Club, said the dredged material will be of “poor quality” and hurt the environment if it seeps out of the hole into the lagoon. He said a variety of “recreationally important fish” exist near John’s Island, including crevalle jack, sand perch, pompano, black drum, tarpon, ladyfish and bluefish.
“In our view, re-introducing this material into the lake would be a mistake,” he wrote in a letter last month to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Fish & Wildlife also was concerned about the disposal site and the potential impact of the dumped material on nearby county and state-funded restoration projects such as John’s Island, Ibis Isle, Snook Islands and Grassy Flats.
“These restoration projects could be impacted if dredged material is placed in John’s Hole and does not remain there,” Jennifer Goff, FWC land use planning program administrator, wrote in a recent letter to the DEP. “ John’s Hole may be acting as a ‘sump’ that is effectively trapping fine materials from the C-51 canal, and it may not continue to serve this beneficial function if it is filled to the proposed 19 ft. with dredged material.”
An attorney for Tim Hulett, a West Palm Beach resident who lives near the lagoon, also sent a letter to the DEP, objecting to the use of John’s Island Hole. The letter said the proposed project “would destroy a valuable, popular natural resource.”
Searching for new site
The DEP sent a “request for additional information” to the town and asked the town to demonstrate that using John’s Hole wouldn’t degrade water quality, cause adverse turbidity levels or harm fish and wildlife.
Dan Bates, deputy director of the county’s Department of Environmental Resources Management, said a “less impactive” site would be Bonefish Cove. Bonefish Cove is a county “living shorelines” project to raise the elevation of the lagoon and create three small mangrove islands and oyster reefs between the Lake Worth Bridge and Hypoluxo Island.
Weber said the dredged muck could be placed at Bonefish Cove and then “capped” with sand. There would be an additional cost to haul the dredged material by barge an additional 3.5 miles from John’s Hole to Bonefish Cove, he said.
Public Works Director Paul Brazil plans to ask the Town Council Thursday for approval to pay the project consultant and contractor an additional $333,000 for the changes. The approval would be contingent upon receipt of the necessary permits and private donations to “fully fund” the project.
Work could begin as early as next week if state and federal permits are finalized and the money is in the bank before then. The project is expected to take about seven months. Town staff is recommending the council grant waivers so the contractor can start the project earlier and work longer hours during the day.
Source: Palm Beach Daily News
