Posted on September 10, 2018
Under pressure from boaters and cottage owners along the lower Susquehanna River, Exelon Energy has announced it will dredge a channel at the Peach Bottom Marina “as soon as possible.”
The marina and a short section of Peters Creek is the only public access to the Susquehanna on the Lancaster County side for boaters and rescue crews on an 11-mile section of the river known as the Conowingo Pond.
Boaters and marina owners have complained for years that filling in of the river access channel has made boating from the marina and its services perilous at best and sometimes leaves boats stuck in mud.
At a rally Saturday morning of about 75 disgruntled people at the marina in Fulton Township, Exelon officials announced they would dredge the marina “as soon as possible, permits and regulations allowing, in support of boosting community recreation and local tourism.
“We care about the environment and our local communities, and we live up to our commitments,” said Exelon spokeswoman Lacey Dean.
Dean declined to estimate when the dredging might begin.
Years of frustration
Exelon’s promise comes after several years of meetings between Exelon officials and frustrated boaters and cottage owners who claim Exelon has pledged to dredge the channel annually since 2014 but has found excuse after excuse not to do the work.
A recent petition drive by the 300-member Susquehanna River Boaters Association to try to force Exelon into action as part of the relicensing of the Conowingo Dam has garnered more than 1,400 signatures.
Thelma Grumbein, a Drumore resident and the boaters association representative pushing for the dredging, called the promise to do the work “bittersweet.
“I feel saddened that it had to escalate to this point,” she said. “I feel we had established a solid partnership with them and I had trusted in them time and time again.”
But, she said she would trust the new partnership with Exelon.
Exelon’s Dean said the utility has been working through permitting, vendor selection and environmental studies. She said the project was paused in 2018 “to evaluate the best possible solution for all stakeholders.”
In response to rumors, Dean said that “at this time, there is no plan to close Peach Bottom Marina.”
Grumbein and Exelon officials are to meet in September to go over project details, a timeline and post-dredging maintenance, Grumbein said.
For decades, silt runoff from farmland and other uses, as well as the rising and falling of river levels from power generation at the Conowingo Dam have filled in the Lancaster County side of the river between the Conowingo and Holtwood dams.
The channel was last dredged in 1986.
Things got so bad with shallow water at the once-thriving Peach Bottom Marina that Exelon paid marina owners for partial refunds given to those storing their boats at the facility.
Former marina owner Donna Stoudt of Ephrata said the mud was destroying her business. Exelon bought the marina from Stoudt this spring.
SUSQUEHANNA RIVER BOATERS ASSOCIATION
“It was frustrating,” said Stoudt. “It got to the point where they don’t even want to go to the marina because people never knew if they could get out or not.”
One who gave up was Frank McCabe of Mount Joy, who boated out of the marina for 27 years. But after the 2016 summer boating season he moved his pontoon boat to Port Deposit, Maryland, even though it’s farther away.
“It just became such a big frustration,” said McCabe, noting the sedimentation problems have significantly worsened over the last 10 years.
“They’re using a public waterway,” he says of Exelon. “They have rights to all the land around it. They’ve taken control of that river. It was a natural resource for the public and they’ve kind of taken it over completely.”
Grumbein says Exelon’s license for the Conowingo Dam mandates that they provide recreation for the public.
Source: LancasterOnline
