Posted on May 16, 2016
Representatives from ACT Engineers, a firm hired by the last year to tackle the city’s severely silted lagoons and back bay with long-term dredging strategies, will give an update on the city’s dredging program at a town hall meeting 11 a.m. Saturday, May 21.
Public information officer Doug Bergen said Thursday that Mayor Jay Gillian and City Council members will be on hand for the meeting, to be held at the Howard S. Stainton Senior Center inside the Ocean City Community Center at 1735 Simpson Ave.
Along with discussing bay and lagoon dredging planned for 2016, the firm will discuss long-term planning and options to remove dredged spoils from the city’s disposal sites to make room for new projects, Bergen said.
City officials appropriated $10 million for bay dredging in 2016, and allotted $20 million for the program in the five-year capital outlook presented to the public in January.
The city received a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last month to build a temporary access road to Site 83, which officials said will expedite the removal of dredge spoils.
The dredging program has hit a number of snags in recent years, including a work stoppage at Site 83, the city’s disposal facility near the 34th Street bridge. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered the work stoppage in late January after Wickberg Marine Contracting built a nonpermitted earthen pier at the site.
The contractor was hired by the city to clear the site of 50,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils by barge and truck it to Wildwood in order to cap a landfill there on Susquehanna Avenue.
Wickberg was also hired last year for dredge work in Snug Harbor, between Eighth and Ninth streets off Bay Avenue, and failed to finish the job before the Dec. 31 deadline due to environmental restrictions put in place by the Department of Environmental Protection.
For more information on the May 21 meeting, call 609-525-9333.
Source: ShoreNewsToday
