The city's emergency dredging of the Old Pass Lagoon Channel and harbor mouth wrapped up last week with more than 10,000-cubic-yards of sand removed.
"We'll be good all summer, unless we have a storm," said Steve Schmidt, the city's development manager.
As part of the emergency project, a majority of the sand was removed from an area adjacent to the Marler Bridge, which Schmidt described as the "problem area." The rest was removed from the mouth of the harbor.
"That's where it was shoaled about four to five-feet, and boats such as the Buccaneer were having problems," he said.
All of the sand removed from the area near the bridge was transported to a nearby property, while the sand that came from the mouth of the harbor was placed directly on the tip of Norriego Point.
The city agreed to store about 10,000-cubic-yards of sand on a parcel of land owned by Galic Pointe, which is the former Pointe One LLC parcel to the east of the point's tip. Per the city's agreement, Galic Pointe will keep 20 percent of the sand as "compensation."
While it's hard to quantify how much approximately 10,700-cubic-yards of sand is, Schmidt said the average dump truck — full to the brim — can hold about 20-cubic-yards of sand. Roughly 535 truck loads of sand were hauled off, he said.
With the Old Pass Lagoon now cleaned out, Schmidt said the city is currently awaiting the arrival of its Joint Coastal Permit through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The permit will allow the city to place sand on submerged lands, which in this case would be the area near one of the T-groins along the point. The city expects to receive the permit "almost any day now."
Ultimately the city plans to complete a massive stabilization of Norriego Point, which is a multi-million dollar project. Once completed, Schmidt said the city would more than likely see its dredging efforts become fewer and further between.
"It may be years before we'd have to do it again, instead of once a year," he said.