By MADDY VITALE
Homeowners on the back bays in Ocean City enjoy their property. They enjoy what comes with living on the water — the view, their slips and, yes, their boats.
But their boats are no good if they can’t use them. Which is why it is so important to these homeowners that the lagoons leading to the bay are dredged routinely.
In the next couple of weeks, dredging work at bayfront lagoons, where muddy sediment has been building up and making it difficult for boaters to navigate the waterways, will begin by the city.
In November, City Council awarded a nearly $2.3 million contract to the lowest bidder, SumCo Eco-Contracting LLC, of Peabody, Mass., to do the work.
“Dredging of the back bays is important to do on a yearly basis to stop sediment buildup and keep the channels clean and free for boaters,” Michael Allegretto, aide to Mayor Jay Gillian, said Tuesday.
Allegretto noted that when Gillian took office in 2010, he made dredging a top priority and continues to make it a big focus of his administration.
“One of the frustrating things, at first, was getting the permitting for dredging. From the time we got the go-ahead for the permits, the mayor has always made it a top priority,” Allegretto said. “It is important to keep the channels clear for boaters and for the homeowners.”
The project is a continuation of the city’s multi-year dredging program for the shallow lagoons and channels along the back bays.
The areas scheduled next for dredging include Snug Harbor, North Point Lagoon, Venetian Bayou, Carnival Bayou, South Harbor, Sunny Harbor and the approaches to the Bluefish and Clubhouse lagoons.
Sean Barnes lives in Snug Harbor. The avid sailor, duck hunter and fisherman spends nearly 12 months of the year on the water. He has lived in Snug Harbor since 1999.
He was outside Tuesday cleaning off his 18-foot fishing boat when he recalled the times that dredging was desperately needed, but before the city became aggressive in its approach to dredging.
“When they kick-started it, it was like night and day. All of a sudden, the boat slips were filled,” Barnes said. “People were out there swimming. They were rafting.”
Snug Harbor, a quaint lagoon off Bay Avenue between Eighth and Ninth streets, has experienced a chronic buildup of sediment over the years.
It is a location that requires repeated dredging by the city to make it deep enough for bayfront homeowners to enjoy their boats.
“We all have our issues when we live on the bay, but our area definitely collects more sediment than others,” Barnes noted.
As homeowners on the bay, Barnes and his neighbors, such as Dave and Sandy Beyel, have had to hire companies to do dredging work on their private boat slips yearly and pay thousands of dollars per slip.
Barnes and the Beyels had their slips dredged last year.
“Now, at low tide, we can already see the mud and sediment,” Barnes said as he pointed to mud and muck at the edge of the docks. “And it is only one year later.”
Until there is a long-term solution, Barnes said he and his neighbors will just have to continue to hire contractors in between the city projects.
Over the last several years, the city has spent millions of dollars on dredging programs.
“We can’t thank Mayor Gillian enough,” Dave Beyel said in a phone interview Tuesday. “People used to turn around. You couldn’t use your boat the majority of time.”
Beyel continued, “Now, you look and you see during the summer, there are jet skis out, boats. People are swimming in the bay and rafting. It is great to see the activity in the bay. You couldn’t water ski or do any other things before the dredging.”
The Beyels have two boat slips and say, like Barnes, that they hope for a long-term solution to the problems in Snug Harbor with sediment buildup, but that they are anxious for the dredging to begin once again to clear the channel.
