By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Sea Isle City is entering the final weeks of a nearly $1 million dredging project to clear out muddy sediment from some of the most popular lagoons and channels before the arrival of the summer boating season.
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, because Sea Isle obviously has many people who are interested in boating, both commercially and recreationally,” city spokeswoman Katherine Custer said in an interview Wednesday.
Sea Isle describes the project as “maintenance dredging” to keep sediment from choking the lagoons and impeding boaters from traveling around the island.
“Keeping our waterways clean and easy to navigate is very important for safety, because we don’t want people running aground,” Custer said.
SumCo Eco-Contracting, of Peabody, Massachusetts, was awarded a $944,892 contract to dredge Sea Isle’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.
City officials said SumCo encountered some equipment failures last year while it was dredging the lagoons. Parts of the project were delayed. As a result, dredging was halted before the bustling summer tourism season and a decision was made to resume the project early this year in the winter.
Barring last-minute delays, Custer said the entire project is expected to be completed in about two weeks.
“They’re still proceeding nicely,” she said.
Dredging was recently completed in the marina, one of the most important parts of the project. Floating docks that were temporarily removed from the marina to accommodate the dredging work must be put back, which is expected to happen this week, Custer said.
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.
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.
Before the dredging work got underway, the buildup of sediment had left some waterways looking like mudflats in some places during low tide. In previous interviews, boaters who have slips at the marina said they sometimes had trouble navigating the lagoons and channels because of the sediment.
In the first part of the dredging project, the contractor completed work last year in 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 done on the Intracoastal Waterway side of Venicean Road and other interior lagoons.
The bay area next to 38th Street and Sounds Avenue is also part of the dredging project.
As the project wraps up in the next two weeks, the contractor will dredge the mouth of the Rio Della Luna lagoon between 45th Place and 46th Place and the Rio Grande waterway surrounded by wetlands on one side and 47th Place on the other, Custer said.
