Posted on December 22, 2016
Work crews dredging sections of the Napa River have received a second extension on the oft-delayed project, and will now be able to continue excavating as late as Friday.
A group of regional agencies pushed back the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ work permit deadline on Thursday, when it had been scheduled to expire, according to Rick Thomasser, operations manager for the Napa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District.
Crews with the Corps’ contractor, Alaska-based Ahtna Design-Build Inc., will work around the clock into the new Friday deadline, alternating between removing sediment from the river’s downtown section and depositing the silt near the Napa Pipe site, Thomasser said Monday.
The new extension is intended to allow workers to complete the final stage of dredging around the downtown Napa dock near the Third Street bridge, the northern limit of the river’s navigable channel.
The Corps originally was given until Nov. 30, but was granted more time by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) after delays in moving its barge-mounted equipment to Napa and breakdowns caused by riverbed debris.
A group of regulators that includes the State Water Resources Control Board, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries and others, the BCDC has the power to approve out-of-season construction in Bay Area waterways, where wintertime work is normally restricted to protect migrating fish and other wildlife.
Ahtna workers were shifted out of Napa during October to dredge the port of Fort Bragg ahead of a local Oct. 31 deadline. After the contractor’s return to the Napa River, rocks and scrapped tires fouled dredging equipment and caused further delays.
The dredging project is the first federally funded maintenance since 1998 on the Napa River, where silting has increased the hazards to boaters and forced the Napa Valley Yacht Club in 2015 to cancel its annual Lighted Boat Parade. Several sections in a 17-mile stretch of river from Napa to the Asylum Slough near Vallejo are being excavated to a depth of at least 9 feet, with the sediment taken to Napa Pipe and a second site near the South Century Center on Imola Avenue.
Source: Napa Valley Register
