The scoop on dredging

Boat/US Magazine, May, 2003 by Ryck Lydecker

For the average independent marina operator, dredging is a little like going to the dentist. It can be uncomfortable, even downright painful, but if you don't take care of it, the situation will only get worse.

And while maintenance dredging of boat slips and fairways can take a bite out a marina's bottom line, if you don't do it, according to Terry Hill, customers will drift away as quickly as the water shoals in.

Hill operates Hampton's Landing Marina in Woodbridge, VA, about 20 miles downstream on the Potomac River from the nation's capital. A BoatU.S. Cooperating Marina, it is one of three on Neabsco Creek where, if you want a slip, you'd better get on the waiting list.

That's due, in part, to its proximity to Washington, DC. But it's also due to the fact that local marina operators like Hill know how to work within the system when it comes to the complicated, sometimes political, challenges of moving mud out of the way of their customers.

Dig We Must

Between bites of a hot dog in a heated construction trailer and over the din of a barge-mounted backhoe pulling silt from the slips, Hill explains his project.

"The main channel out to the Potomac is actually a federally-designated channel dating back to 1860," Hill says, pointing to a buoy just beyond the pier heads at his 140-slip marina. "It once had barge traffic and commercial fishing but that pretty much died out years ago."

Hill is in high gear, working in the biting cold with the contractor's crew to get done before the "dredging window" closes March 15 and fish spawning season begins.

"The channel fell into disuse and as a result, the Corps of Engineers stopped maintaining it," he goes on. "My business partner's father, Doc Hampton, built this marina in 1950 and he got the Corps to dredge the channel again in 1954, but that was the end of it for many, many years.

In the meantime, Hill says, the channel, authorized at six feet, began silting in due to upland erosion along the headwaters of Neabsco Creek By the time his father built the Pilot House Restaurant next door, in 1970, the channel had shoaled to three feet. But the creek still provided sheltered access to the Potomac and eventually three marinas were developed on it.

Since then, the channel shallowed and the docks silted in. It was time to bring in the Corps of Engineers again.

"Of course, you just don't call the Corps on the phone and ask them to dredge," says Hill. "You have to understand how the process works and that's when we started learning how to work the process.

Through contacts on the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, Hill got the attention of then-Congresswoman Leslie Byrne in 1995. With her help, Congress put money in the Corps budget to conduct a feasibility and cost-benefit study for dredging the creek.

"But the report came back negative," Hill reports. "The Corps said dredging could not be justified because there wasn't enough commercial traffic and they aren't allowed to consider recreational uses of the waterway"

So Hill started beating the creek banks for commercial uses that could be factored in, local fishing operations, construction barges, even his own TowBoatU.S. business qualified.

By this time, the seat in Congress had gone to Tom Davis who also appreciated the importance of keeping the channel open once Hill made his case. With Davis' help, and after another study or two, the Corps began digging again in 1997 and that allowed Hill and his partner Butch Hampton to begin rebuilding the marina.

Deeper Pockets

"Once they got the federal channel dredged they had to focus on their own problems with shoaling in the marina itself," says Martin Firth of Lake Services, Inc., the contractor that dug out the main channel and has pefformed all the work at Hampton's Landing as well.

"There are potentially 13 agencies that can be involved in permit applications for private projects like this in Virginia," Firth explains. "Dredging is overwhelming to most small business owners who may know the ins and outs of marina operations to a tee, but all they know about dredging is that it's a nuisance -- and it's going to be expensive."

Firth is right on both counts, according to the Marina Operators Association of America, which says the marina industry is facing a nationwide crisis. According to a report issued last year by the association, costs have risen so dramatically that marinas are opting to defer needed dredging or get out of the business altogether.

For example, the report shows that the basic lab testing cost for sediment samples has more than tripled in the last 15 years. Indeed, if sophisticated tests for various contaminants are required, those costs can eclipse all other expenses for the rest of the project.

Handling costs for dredged material disposal -- usually on land for recreational marinas -- have increased as much as 1,000% in the same period. While marina dredging is usually "cleaner" than dredging projects for commercial ports and industrial harbors, recreational marinas are subject to the same permitting processes and testing standards.