Project Locationīuena Vista waterway system, Greater Port Charlotte, Sunrise, Elkcam, Beeney, Gardner access channels and their connector canals. The ambition is to restore restricted depth and width of the navigable channels and provide safe navigation. This dredging design will include Sunrise, Elkcam, Beeney, Gardner and their connector channels. This project will consist of the hired consultant engineering firm applying for new permits, utilizing current bathymetry to begin planning for a maintenance dredge event, creating a set of bid ready plans and project specification, assisting in the bid process and ultimately performing construction oversight services once a dredging contract is awarded. Since the last project the State and Federal Government permits that were utilized have expired and new Permits / Notice of Exemption from the agencies are required to continue with what the Committee is requesting. Per the requested of the MSBU waterway committee this project was initiated in the beginning of 2021. At the end of 2020 a bathymetric survey was completed of the area and identified the shoaled in areas of concern. Since, new concerns of a need to restore safe navigation have been brought to the County’s attention. Webber said the Harbor Board is currently putting together a bid package, and will be coming before the Board of Selectmen in the near future to discuss the matter.The Buena Vista Waterway Committee requested and received a dredging of the access and connector channels. In the meantime, the town has to go out to bid for a contractor to remove all the moorings in the harbor prior to the start of work and to put them all back in when work is completed. Still, he said, “it’s looking very good” for a November dredge start date. ![]() “We will continue working together in the months ahead to ensure that both the House and Senate appropriate the requested funding so we can get these shovel-ready projects finished and keep these ports and waterways operating for the fishermen and other users who depend on them.”Īccording to Karalius, the Army Corps can put out the bids and even open them, but will not be able to award the contract until the money is in hand. “We’re very pleased to see that the Army Corps of Engineers has included more than $7 million for the much-needed dredging of York Harbor, Saco River, and Wells Harbor in its budget proposal,” said Sens. In a letter to the director of the Office of Management and Budget and to secretary of the Army official in charge of the Army Corps, they urged inclusion of $49 million “for small, remote or subsistence navigation” programs that included the York Harbor dredge funds. Chellie Pingree have sent several letters to federal officials seeking funding for the dredge, most recently in May. The problem has been limited funding for dredging small ports and harbors in past budgets – with the lion’s share going to major ports. The Harbor Board began the permitting process for a dredge in 2012, and has had all the necessary state and federal permits in hand since 2015. It’s estimated about 30 percent of all the harbor moorings are affected by the silting. ![]() Portions of the north and south basins are currently exposed sandbars at low tide. The harbor has had to be dredged roughly every 20 years since. Before the first dredge in the 1950s by the Army Corps of Engineers, there was no harbor but just a channel, said former Harbormaster Dave Hutchinson. Since the last dredge in 1996, more than 42,000 cubic yards of sand, silt and clay have accumulated. It has been 21 years since York Harbor has been dredged – a scooping out of silt that comes from further upriver and builds up gradually in the harbor. In all, more than $7 million was appropriated for the projects. Army Corps of Engineers. In addition to York Harbor, funding is also included in the president’s budget for dredges of the Saco River and Wells Harbor. 1, said Jack Karalius, project manager with the U.S. If all goes well, bids will go out in July and the contract will be awarded Oct. “So we feel very pleased and cautiously optimistic.” ![]() But it’s 99 percent sure,” said Harbor Board chairman David Webber. The appropriation still has to be approved by Congress, so “it’s not 110 percent sure yet. YORK, Maine - After five years, a lot of worry by the town’s Harbor Board and continuing work of the Maine Congressional delegation, word came this week that $2.5 million is in President Donald Trump’s budget to dredge York Harbor.
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