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Volume 9, Issue 11 |
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Page 5 |
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DREDGING UNDERWAY
After two years of effort on the part of the Ballantrae Yacht Club board of directors, the dredging of the marina will begin September 2nd .
The project will involve the removal of various amounts of muck to bring the marina to an overall depth of 5’ at mean low water. This is a huge improvement for the boat slips located on the northern section where depths are as low as 18 inches making it impossible to lower lifts or navigate at low tide.
Boats will be relocated within the marina by a talented group of volunteers. There is also an expected turnout of member experts who will most likely offer copious amounts of advice and other tidbits to the dredge crew. One member even suggested we all bring beach chairs to the dock so we won’t miss any of the excitement. GREAT IDEA, John!!
The contractor is CK MARINE from Ft Pierce. They have extensive experience in dredging marinas. Their plan is to dredge each runway and then reach into the slips with a long arm shovel. The mud will be placed into containers on a separate barge and transported to the spoil site at the Roosevelt Bridge. The entire process should take 4 weeks….depending on you know what….weather.
The cost of the project is about $150,000 with the slip owners being assessed their respective shares depending on the size of their slip. With slips having sold in the $130,000 range, this expense appears well worth the benefit derived.
One of the more interesting side stories is that we were required to fund a high tech sonar search of the marina footprint for Indian artifacts. Unless they drank beer (lots of empty cans) or used power tools (oops, I dropped it in the river, honey) there were no findings. Cost…$9,000.
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