After the Army Corps of Engineers pulled their dredge to perform work along the Intercoastal Waterway, the city had come up with a Plan B for dredging the Old Pass Lagoon, but it now seems as though Plan A is back on the books.
“Based on updated information as of this morning (Wednesday), the ACOE has indicated that their dredge should be back in our area to commence the dredging of the Coast Guard Channel right before Memorial Weekend,” City Manager Maryann Ustick wrote in an email to city leaders. “Consequently, if this schedule holds, the ACOE’s dredge contractor would be able to commence the dredging of the Old Pass Lagoon Channel sometime the week after Memorial Weekend.”
The city had originally planned to “piggyback” off of the scheduled Coast Guard dredging project that would clear our the Coast Guard channel as well as Old Pass Lagoon and the mouth of Destin Harbor. The sand dredged from the project would be used in conjunction with phase one of the Norriego Point Stabilization project.
Given the historic rain of last week, areas of the Intercoastal Waterway were damaged and the project was put in limbo as the city searched for an alternate option for dredging.
The city held discussions with Gator Dredging, who has performed a project for the city last year, but the price to bring them on board was higher than what the city had agreed to pay the Corps dredge contractor, which was $211,200. The increased costs were due to additional mobilization and monitoring.
“In addition, the time needed for Gator to complete the dredging, given the smaller size of their equipment, would be about two weeks — compared to 3-5 days for the ACOE’s dredge contractor,” Ustick wrote.
So instead of going with Gator dredging and Plan B, the city will now stay the course and wait for the Corps dredge to come back to Destin, although further delays “due to unanticipated problems” with dredging the Intercoastal Waterway could arise.
“We believe this to be the best course of action weighing all the information we have at this time,” Ustick wrote.