Posted on April 14, 2025
MANISTEE — Manistee’s harbor faces another round of dredging later this year, according to harbor commission officials.
While the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed maintenance dredging in 2024, a March depth survey has uncovered new shoaling at the mouth of the harbor, prompting plans for fresh excavation to maintain a 25-foot depth in the outer harbor.
“The city manager and I have been receiving correspondence from the corps of engineers that they are continuing to look at and seeking additional funding to continue dredging the harbor,” said Manistee harbormaster Jeff Mikula. “They are also budgeting funds, or requesting budgeted funds, to do a study pretty much from probably a third of the way up the channel from Lake Michigan.”
Chris Franckowiak, head of the “Manistee MI, Vessel Traffic” Facebook group, notes that a bid is set to open on May 9 for the removal of an estimated 33,000 cubic feet of sediment, with dredging anticipated to take place from mid-August through October.
Manistee is a deep-draft commercial harbor with about two miles of maintained channel. Army Corps documents show that 40,000 to 70,000 cubic yards of sediment may require removal every two to three years to maintain a reliable shipping lane in Manistee.
“In the past, we used carryover money from previous budgets,” Mikula said. “But now they’re trying to secure new funds so we can finish that work and address the shoaling.”
Stakeholders include the U.S. Coast Guard Station Manistee and major industrial companies like Martin Marietta, Morton Salt, Rieth-Riley, and the T.E.S. Filer City Generating Station.
Failing to maintain the harbor could mean lost jobs and higher shipping costs if bulk materials must move by rail or truck instead. Harbor data indicates that waterborne commerce supports millions in business revenue and a significant number of direct and indirect jobs in Manistee.
However, the Manistee River channel isn’t closed during dredging operations, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Lanes are maintained and dredging vessels are moved to allow ships to pass when needed.
The harbor’s 25-foot entrance depth is crucial for vessels delivering commodities such as limestone, gravel and coal. Last year’s dredging relied on leftover funds, making new allocations essential for the corps’ ongoing work in Manistee.
The city and the Army Corps of Engineers have also begun exploring potential upland property where silt could be stored and dewatered once dredging moves inland. According to Army Corps guidelines, sand from the outer harbor can often be repurposed for beach nourishment or nearshore placement.
“It’s sand that they dredge, and then they start getting into silty material from almost the city marina up to Manistee Lake,” Mikula said. “That silty material can’t be pumped and deposited in Lake Michigan or on the shoreline, so they’re looking for a piece of property that would be suitable for dredge soil disposal.”
Much of the conversation at a January harbor commission meeting centered on preserving the Riverwalk in the face of extensive dredging.
Federal law requires maintaining the harbor’s full navigation channel, which Mikula warns could encroach on city structures.
“One of the concerns that the city has is that when they did dredging last year … they impacted the bank and where the net shed was and impacted our Riverwalk,” he said. “So we’ve started to have some discussions internally and with our engineers on what it would require for us to stabilize the Riverwalk or try to compel the corps not to dredge to the point where it would cause us damage.”
Mikula said strengthening the Manistee Riverwalk to withstand full-scale federal dredging would come with a steep price tag — one the city may not be able to shoulder without assistance.
“We’re talking a substantial amount of money to make sure that the Riverwalk can withstand the federal dredging limits,” Mikula said. “Essentially, we don’t know the exact history, because it was all prior to our times, but there seemed to be kind of a gentleman’s agreement between the city and the corps that the corps would not maintain that area to the full width.”
Mikula explained that federal regulations call for the harbor’s channel to be maintained 120 feet wide and 25 feet deep at low water. The corps, he said, never received the necessary funding to reach that standard in years past — and now wants to explore a return to the full extent recommended by law.
“We’ve asked them to kind of go back to that old way … and if 80 feet is sufficient,” he said, “ But they said they have to talk with the shipping companies and get their input.”
Under the current Riverwalk design, he added, “the posts are wood posts. They’re not true pilings.”
Mikula said last year’s temporary fix — installing 40-foot steel piles — proved costly, and spacing enough steel throughout a large stretch of wooden supports would be neither practical nor affordable.
“We could put them 20 foot and rebuild a new river walk and save money,” he said, “but we’d have to permit that, and we’d have to come up with the funding.”
Mikula added that any long-term fix will depend on final plans from the corps.
“We’re kind of trying to figure out what the corps’ move is going to be,” he said. “We need to come up with kind of a short- to long-term solution, and just kind of monitor that and try to stay ahead of it.”
The next harbor commission meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. on April 15 in the Manistee City Council Chambers located at 70 Maple St. in Manistee.
Members of the Manistee Harbor Commission discuss upcoming dredging plans during their Jan. 21, 2025 meeting, as shown in this ManisteeTV screenshot.
