By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Equipment failures will delay the completion of a part of Sea Isle City’s nearly $1 million dredging project for some of the resort’s most popular waterways, a city official said Friday.
The city said dredging for the lagoon serving the public marina on 42nd Place will not take place until next winter instead of wrapping up this spring, as originally planned.
“They are having equipment problems,” city spokeswoman Katherine Custer said of Sea Isle’s dredging contractor, SumCo Eco-Contracting, of Peabody, Mass. “I know they are trying to get it done if they could, but the bottom line is mechanical failure.”
SumCo has a $944,892 contract to dredge some of the busiest lagoons and channels along the back bays. The company was supposed to have the waterways and the marina completed in plenty of time before the bustling summer boating and fishing season.
“It’s getting close to boating season,” Custer said. “People want to get their boats back in the water.”
Boat owners had to clear out of the marina to make room for the dredging project, but now they will be let back in because the dredging project has been pushed back until next winter.
“It’s unfortunate, but we will pick up next (winter) and we’ll get it done,” Custer said of the marina dredging.
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.
Meanwhile, the dredging project will continue in other waterways for the next 30 days before shutting down for the season. Lagoons and channels that are becoming filled with muddy sediment are being deepened to make them more navigable for boating traffic.
The dredging contractor started the project over the winter in the channel near the Yacht Club of Sea Isle City, located at the bay end of Venicean Road.
Jim Collins, the yacht club general manager, said in an earlier interview there are times when boats actually get stuck in the mud during low tide because the channel has become so shallow.
After the channel next to the yacht club is deepened, the dredging project will clear out sediment in spots on the Intracoastal Waterway side of Venicean Road and other interior lagoons.
The bay area next to 38th Street and Sounds Avenue will also be dredged. At times during low tide, that area looks more like a mudflat than an active waterway.
As part of the program, the city will also work with the yacht club as well as homeowners on Venicean Road and 38th Street and Sounds Avenue to get their private boat slips dredged.
The yacht club and homeowners would pay for dredging their boat slips, but will be able to save money by piggybacking on the city’s dredging permits. The process would relieve them of some of the costs and headaches of doing the dredging work on their own, including finding a disposal site for the sediment.
Sea Isle describes the project as “maintenance dredging” to keep sediment from completely choking the lagoons and channels. The city previously dredged parts of the lagoon system in 1981, 1982, 1989, 1999 and then in 2012, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that issued the permit for the current project.
The lagoons are a major part of the town’s identity as a boating, fishing and resort community. Visionary real estate developer Charles K. Landis was inspired by Venice, Italy, when he founded Sea Isle as a seashore resort in 1882 and began creating lagoons along the bays so he could sell more waterview property after the oceanfront sites were gobbled up.
