Posted on June 24, 2020
The Bridgewater Channel gets as much traffic as some other Lake Havasu City thoroughfares, but it gets far less maintenance. That’s because, thanks to a lot of overlapping jurisdictions, it’s something of a no man’s land when it comes to upkeep. And it definitely needs upkeep. You might not be able to see the bottom of the channel, but scanners show that sediment buildup on the north end will eventually become a big problem.
The Tecopa ferry, which ushers passengers back and forth between the Havasu Landing Casino and the English Village, has only a few feet of clearance in some places. Erosion caused by boat wakes are also eating away at the shoreline, compounding the sediment problem.
About a year ago, the Havasu community was on track to take care of it – Kings View Condo owners association partnered with the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe on a grant application that would pay for much-needed dredging in that area and add infrastructure to address erosion problems. They hired Jim Salscheider, who built up a hefty Rolodex of state and federal connections in his former career as chairman of the Lake Havasu Marine Association, to help guide the grant application through the bureaucracy. Everything was going swimmingly, for a time. Then Jim Salscheider died in November. That setback was followed a few months later by the coronavirus pandemic, which basically put the brakes on a lot of government projects and processes.
Both the Chemehuevi Tribe and the Kings View Condo owners association have said they are very interested in continuing this effort, but they neither have the resources or experience necessary to get things moving again. It’s clear they need a third party, and we think it’s time for the city to play more than a passive role. Lake Havasu City has a major economic interest in the health of the Bridgewater Channel.
About 479,000 people took the ferry across Lake Havasu in 2018, and the Chemehuevi Tribe employs about 80 Havasu residents. Even more importantly, the channel is the heart of tourism for Lake Havasu City, passing under the London Bridge and acting as a launching pad for thousands of boats and personal watercraft.
We think Lake Havasu City ought to make the dredging project a priority and help the tribe and condo owners clear the inevitable bureaucratic hurdles that are going to come up. If other funding sources are needed, we hope the city can help identify some ways to pay.
After all, this was never going to be easy. As Salscheider liked to say, “There will be hurdles – it’s a California Indian tribe attempting to dredge an Arizona channel. Getting this grant will rely on the community’s support.”
Let’s commit, as a community, to giving this much-needed project the support it deserves.
— Today’s News-Herald
Source: havasunews
