By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
It floats and looks faintly like a boat.
But this isn’t something normally seen puttering around the lagoons and waterways of Sea Isle City.
Anchored in the channel off the end of Sounds Avenue near 38th Street is a barge-like piece of dredging equipment.
Although the low-slung barge is hardly glamorous, it has an important job – clearing out muddy sediment that is clogging the lagoons used by summer boaters and commercial fishing vessels.
After encountering delays last year, the city’s dredging contractor is back to finish the job this winter.
SumCo Eco-Contracting, of Peabody, Massachusetts, has a nearly $945,000 contract to dredge the city’s municipal marina, as well as some of the busiest lagoons and channels along the back bays. Originally, the company was supposed to have the waterways and the marina dredged in plenty of time before the 2021 summer boating and fishing season.
Sea Isle officials said SumCo encountered some equipment failures last year while it was dredging the lagoons. As a result, dredging was halted before the bustling summer tourism season and a decision was made to resume the project this winter.
SumCo transported its dredging equipment by truck from Massachusetts. Dredging was expected to start on Friday, but was held up by persistent rainy weather.
City spokeswoman Katherine Custer said SumCo will work seven days a week until the dredging is completed. She did not immediately know the date the project is scheduled to wrap up.
“Hopefully, we should be able to go fast,” she said of the work.
This year, SumCo is using a newer type of dredge that is equipped with high-tech software and should be more reliable than the equipment used last year, Custer explained.
“It should prove to be useful,” she said.
Sea Isle describes the project as “maintenance dredging” to keep sediment from completely choking the lagoons and channels.
In the first part of the project last year, the contractor dredged the channel next to the Yacht Club of Sea Isle City, located at the bay end of Venicean Road.
After the channel next to the yacht club was finished, dredging was scheduled to be done on the Intracoastal Waterway side of Venicean Road and other interior lagoons.
Sea Isle’s municipal marina along 42nd Place and the bay area next to 38th Street and Sounds Avenue are also part of the dredging work.
Exactly how much dredging work was completed last year was unclear Friday. SumCo did not return a call Friday to its corporate office in Massachusetts seeking comment.
In its latest update on the dredging project, the city says on its website that “some work has been completed, including around the Yacht Club of Sea Isle City.”
The lagoons are a major part of the town’s identity as a boating, fishing and resort community dating back to Sea Isle’s founding in 1882 as a Venice, Italy-inspired seashore retreat by visionary real estate developer Charles K. Landis.
“Our waterways are very important to us – both for commercial fishing that takes place and the very, very large amount of recreational boating in Sea Isle,” Custer said.
The buildup of sediment has left some of Sea Isle’s waterways looking like mudflats in some places during low tide. Boaters who have slips at the marina say they sometimes have trouble navigating the lagoons and channels because of the sediment.
The marina is regarded as one of the gems of the historic Fish Alley neighborhood, an enclave of family-owned restaurants and fishing boats rooted in Sea Isle’s beginnings as a small commercial seaport.
Tucked away in a lagoon along 42nd Place, the marina features 87 boat slips and has been improved in recent years with new landscaping, docks, a boardwalk, an open-air pavilion and public restrooms. All of the slips are rented year after year, reflecting the marina’s popularity.
