Posted on August 13, 2018
A long-awaited dredging of the navigation channel into Sodus Bay is underway, and boosters say it’s long overdue.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the dredging contract was awarded to Luedtke Engineering Co. of Frankfort, Mich. USACE estimates up to 58,000 cubic yards of material will be dredged from the federal channel during the project.
The last dredging project in the harbor occurred in 2004, according to information on the USACE website.
Sodus Point Mayor Dave McDowell, who is president of the bay advocacy organization Save our Sodus, said the project started July 23 and Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Michael D. Izard-Carroll said Tuesday it should be completed by the end of August.
McDowell said in an update on the Save our Sodus webpage that the dredging “should add some significant depth to the channel.”
Izard-Carroll said the channel should have a depth of 16 feet when the dredging project is complete.
While the channel no longer needs to be deep enough to support lake freighters, as it did for decades when the bay welcomed commercial shipping traffic, the reduced depths have discouraged larger recreational boats, McDowell said.
“Sailboats with a significant draft no longer come (into the harbor) for fear of getting stuck,” McDowell noted.
That has reduced potential business for Sodus Point — a community that, in 2017, suffered significant losses of business because of high lake and bay levels.
According to merchants, business appears to have rebounded nicely in 2018, thanks to lower water levels and a hot, dry summer.
USACE said the bay generates about $9.5 million in economic benefits.
There are other benefits to the dredging, McDowell added, saying that the greater channel depth should increase the exchange of water between Lake Ontario and the bay.
“Ultimately, that is expected to improve the water quality of the bay,” said McDowell, including decreased weed growth.
Further, the dredged material is being used to address a breach between Charles Point and Crescent Beach to the east of the channel that developed two years ago and widened in 2017 during record-high water levels on Lake Ontario. In essence, waves carrying heavy amounts of silt were crashing directly into the bay by way of the breach. The narrow strip of land connects with a breakwall to protect the bay from sometimes turbulent lake waters.
In a press conference last summer at Sodus Point, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on the Army Corps of Engineers to get started on the overdue harbor dredging and use the material dredged from the channel to help repair the breach.
Schumer spokesman Jason Kaplan said Tuesday that “the Army Corps is accommodating the senator’s suggestion. Rather than dumping the dredged material out in the open Lake Ontario as is usually done, the dredger is depositing the material at a near-shore littoral area where the material can better move toward shore to replenish the shoreline.”
Izard-Carroll confirmed Kaplan’s account.
As for water depths, McDowell said the bay is about 246.1 feet above sea level, and that figure is expected to drop another 6 inches in the short term. The decrease is projected to continue into the fall.
Source: Finger Lakes Times
