DREDGING
As many of you are aware of, Dredging went out for bid in July with a
mandatory pre-bid meeting late July. That meant that, if a company was
interested in bidding, they must attend the pre-bid meeting. We had one
company show up for the pre-bid meeting. This took us by surprise since we
had several companies express interest in the project.
In early August we received one bid for dredging. That bid was then
analyzed and rejected. The reason it was rejected is that it wasn't
completely responsive to the Request for Proposal (RFP). And the bidding
company stated that, after building the retention pond and running a pipe to
the pond site, there was only enough money to remove 1 inch of mud from the
marina.
Today we had another meeting to discuss what we needed to change in the bid
and a path forward to successfully dredge.
In the original dredge bidding process it was desired to try and dredge
without an Army Corp permit so that dredging could happen as quick as
possible. But not pursuing a permit we learned it limited us on how much
material could be dredged.
In order to dredge as much spoils as possible we now have two permitting
routes open to us through ACOE. One is an Individual Permit. The other is
the Nationwide Permit. Ideally we would like to deposit dredging spoils in
the pond behind the marina. But this would require mitigation of 5 to 10
acres of wetlands. And it would require an Individual Permit. Estimated
mitigation would cost anywhere from $325,000 to $700,000. And this is if a
mitigation bank can be found. The time frame for an Individual Permit would
be a minimum of a year with no guarantee that Army Corp would approve us
dumping spoils on the wetland behind the marina.
So it has been decided that we will pursue a path for a Nationwide permit.
This gives us more flexibility on how dredging is done and substantially
lowers the cost of spoils containment. And the Nationwide Permit is a much
quicker process as well as likelihood of approval. It has also been decided
to open up options of how the dredging is done. This could include suction
dredging, wet excavation or a coffer dam and dry excavation.
Most of the hard work on putting a new RFP together for bidding is already
done. It is expected that the new RFP will be released around late
September with the contract being awarded early to mid-November. Because of
the breach being imminent we are also pursuing a path of emergency dredging
for the mouth of the marina so that Search & Rescue efforts can be
maintained. Emergency dredging may be possible early November.
Timeline for dredging to begin looks like late Spring or early Summer at
this time. I will keep you posted.
WATER LEVELS
It isn't good! We have had a long hot summer which has taken its toll on the
lake. And the railroad breach appears to be imminent. It is scheduled to
be breached on September 30th. And lake level loss due to the breach is
about 1 to 1.3 feet. Remember this is just an estimate. It could be less.
It could be more. And we are likely to lose another 0.6 feet from
evaporation. There are a couple of us that have done some estimating and
calculations on where the lake will bottom out at in November. We are all
within 0.3 feet of each other. The average of the estimates is that we will
bottom out at 419.0 feet above sea level or 1.8 feet lower than we are now.
Again it may be less than that. It may be more. The effects of the breach
are just not completely known. But we are likely to have about 1.3 feet of
water in the shallow spots of the mouth (without dredging) after evaporation
ends and breaching happens.
There are several of us working on trying to move back the timing of the
breach to December. But it sounds like we will be lucky to get it postponed
to late October at best. I will keep you informed.
