Posted on February 10, 2022
ENGLEWOOD — Stump Pass is being dredged into shape.
Barring any unforeseen weather or other delays, the $2.2 million maintenance dredging project could be completed as early as March 15 or early April, said Michael Poff, president of Coastal Engineering Consultants, the firm overseeing the project for Charlotte County.
The Atlantic and Gulf Dredging and Marine crew pulled more than 65,000 cubic yards of sand from the Stump Pass channel. The project calls for 200,000 cubic yards to be dredged from the pass and to straighten the channel which curves to the south.
The county’s goal is to maintain a navigable mean low water channel at a 5-foot depth.
The dredged sand adds to the Gulf of Mexico shoreline of the Stump Pass State Park at the southern tip of Manasota Key. Sand will also be added to Palm Island Resort’s northern shoreline along Stump Pass and to the Gulf shoreline of Knight Island.
The permeable 400-foot-long rock groin — a “leaky jetty” built in 2017 that extends into the Gulf from the southern tip of Manasota Key — is working as designed. The groin was engineered to trap some, but not all, of the sand traveling south in currents and keep it from slipping into the Stump Pass channel.
The permeable groin, Poff said, is working well, as it was designed to work. The groin has extended the periods between maintenance dredging from less than three years to four or more years.
A substantial portion of the cost of the project is being funded by the state.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is paying for the sand renourishing the Gulf shoreline of the Stump Pass State Park, while funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a taxing unit of island property owners funded the renourishment south of Stump Pass.
