Dredging begins

By Laura Ford
Staff Reporter

Six members from the Sussex Conservation District broke ground on the Assawoman Canal dredging Tuesday, Oct. 3. On the Route 26 bridge, behind CSI Granite & Marble, the team took out their first scoops of soil from the canal.

A long-reach excavator removed soil from the north side of the bridge and drained water before dumping the soil into dump trucks to be taken to the spoils site.

Rob Mitchell, Sussex Conservation District’s equipment manager, said the team would be excavating a distance of approximately 10 linear feet of canal per truckload, which hauls nearly 14 cubic yards of soil. Mitchell anticipated moving approximately 40 truck loads of soil each day.

The soil will be sent to Fresh Pond State Park, which is one of the two spoils sites that have been prepared earlier this summer for soil placement.

Yellow turbidity curtains — plastic sheeting that covers the canal from top to bottom — were put into the canal to catch silt and sediment churned up by the excavation.

Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) project manager Chuck Williams said DNREC officials had to remove brush and clean up the banks of the canal in past weeks, in preparation for the dredging. “We are preparing to get things rolling,” said Williams.

Mitchell said they tried to save as many trees as possible in this process. “We have to be so careful because we are working in such a tight area,” he said.

There is still an appeal pending in the state’s Supreme Court from the Sierra Club, seeking to stop the dredging of the canal, but Williams said, “We are going to move forward and see what happens.”

Williams said the Coast Guard has been alerted and the canal will be closed to boat traffic throughout the week while work is in progress. The canal will be reopened for weekend traffic, he said.

Mitchell said five to six men will be working Monday through Thursday, until Dec. 31 — the seasonal stop date set by the EPA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Delaware to protect fish in the canal during spawning. Dredging is only permitted in the canal from September through December of each year, and work on the project will be confined to that period until completed.

“We’re just glad to be started,” said Mitchell.