By Donald Wittkowski
Ocean City is lining up the funding for a series of road, drainage and dredging projects that will get underway in the fall.
City Council introduced a $9 million bond ordinance Thursday night that includes $4.2 million to rebuild roads and alleys, $1.8 million for drainage improvements and $3 million for dredging.
The projects are part of an ongoing strategy to protect the island from flooding, replace aging drainage pipes and clear out lagoons along the bay backs that are choked with sediment, said Frank Donato, the city’s chief financial officer.
“It’s obviously been a major component of our capital plan year after year. This is a continuation of that effort,” Donato explained of the city’s emphasis on upgrading its infrastructure.
Construction work is expected to begin in the quieter fall months to avoid disruptions during the peak summer vacation season.
The road, alley and drainage projects go hand in hand. They will be scattered across the city as part of an aggressive program to ease flooding throughout the low-lying barrier island.
Roads will be elevated to make them more flood-resistant. Aging drainage pipes that date back decades will be replaced. Donato said that pipes in some parts of the city could be close to nearly a century old.
Meanwhile, dredging is scheduled to start in the fall at North Point Lagoon at the end of Bay Avenue in the Gardens section of town. The same area is also known as the Gardens Lagoon.
In the past three years, the city has been spending millions of dollars to methodically clear out channels and lagoons along the back bays that are laden with mud and silt.
In 2018, Ocean City became the first municipality in New Jersey to receive a state permit allowing it to dredge along the entire length of the island.
The permit from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection essentially gives the city blanket approval to dredge the bayfront from one end of town to the other. In the past, the city had to secure permits for each dredging project it had proposed.
Boat slip owners are able to piggyback on the city’s dredging permits for their own projects. Under the voluntary program, property owners still have to pay for dredging their slips, but the process relieves them of some of the costs and headaches of doing the work on their own, including finding a disposal site for the sediment.
Mayor Jay Gillian has repeatedly said that the dredging projects preserve property values, improve public safety, help the boat owners and marinas and protect the environment.
The dredging program planned for this fall also includes what Donato called “maintenance projects” that will improve tidal flow and keep sediment from building up at the mouths of other lagoons. Maintenance will be done at lagoons throughout the city, he said.
In order to keep the dredging program going, the city has been emptying out its main disposal site for the huge amounts of sediment that are scooped or pumped out of the lagoons.
The disposal area, known as Site 83, is located in the marshlands off Roosevelt Boulevard in the south end of town. The site had to be emptied out before it begins accepting new sediment from the next round of dredging projects scheduled in the fall.
Donato said 65,000 cubic yards of sediment was emptied from Site 83 in the spring. An estimated 50,000 cubic yards of sediment will be taken there after the new dredging projects get started in the fall, he noted.
In other business at Thursday’s Council meeting, the Ocean City High School girls JV8+ rowing team was honored with a city proclamation for winning the title in May at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America’s National Championship Regatta at Dillon Lake in Ohio.
The JV8+ coxswain boat captured the national championship a week after the team won the gold medal at the prestigious Stotesbury Regatta in Philadelphia.
Members of the championship team included McKenzie Thurlow, the coxswain, and Ryleigh Mack, Alexis O’Keefe, Vanessa Karayiannis, Michaela Carroll, Julianna Giardina, Maggie Clunn, Carly Dougherty and Alexia Schmidt.
It was the first time in Ocean City High School history that the girls rowing team had won both the national championship and the Stotesbury Regatta.
“Winning the nationals is a big deal,” Councilman Michael DeVlieger told the team members as they stood in the Council chambers for the proclamation ceremony.
He also told them that even when they grow older, they’ll always cherish the memories of their championship and will remember the teammates who were in the boat with them.
