West OC harbor gets some dredging

WEST OCEAN CITY – A grassroots campaign by a local fishing operation to clear out a clogged artery into West Ocean City’s commercial harbor has paid off, with the Army Corps of Engineers responding to dredge the shallow harbor entrance.

A group of stakeholders, including a representative from the office of Sen. Barbara Mikulski and the Army Corps, met Jan. 28 to talk through the problem of how the harbor constantly clogs with sand and silt. The issue came to light after John Martin, of Martin’s Fish Co. at the harbor, brought it before the Worcester County Commissioner at a recent meeting.

In response to the most recent complaint, Martin said the Army Corps did come through to dredge the harbor, a process that should be done by next week.

Martin said the harbor entrance needs to be dredged to a depth of 14 feet to accommodate his 80-foot fishing trawlers, which have a 12-foot draft. It could hurt his business, as well as the local maritime economy, if large fishing boats can’t get in and out of the harbor, Martin argued.

At the end of last week, Martin said three of his boats went out to sea and hit the sandbar. During the day, there was dredging done. When those boats came back with their haul, “they came in fine,” and did not have any problems with the depth.

But for Martin, this is only the first step.

“Now we need to figure out why it’s doing it,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to dredge it all the time. They dredged it in November, and it came back really quick. If they don’t dredge again in March, then we’re going to have problems again.

“This is good. But the victory comes when it actually gets mandated to the depth we need, and then we need to figure out why it’s even creating that. We need to get an actual study,” he said.

Bill Badger, Worcester County’s Director of Economic Development, confirmed that the Army Corps of Engineers would be back to dredge the harbor this week, and they’ll be back again for another round of it in early spring.

They also will break the larger group into smaller workgroups to examine the next steps, Badger said. They still need to address the problem of how silt seems to gather between two particular buoys outside the harbor entrance.

“The locals know where the depth is, but if you look between the two buoys, there’s only a small path. There was a number of people who testified that boats with not that deep of a draft were hitting bottom,” Badger said.

A feasibility study would be required. Mikulski’s office already has requested that study, according to Badger. The results of the study will determine whether local or federal dollars, or a combination of both, will pay for the new dredge work.

bshane@dmg.gannett.com

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