The Gloucester Times: Essex Dredging Bill on Obama’s Desk

December 15th, 2016

By: Mary Markos

ESSEX — It’s just a bill on Capitol Hill, but President Obama’s signature would be a panacea for boaters who travel the Essex River.

If the president signs it, the Water Resource Development Act of 2016 (WRDA) would allow dredging in the Essex River for the first time since 1992 because of a provision pushed by Congressman Seth Moulton of Salem. The project calls for the town to dredge the upper part of the river as it approaches the downtown Causeway, allowing for the safe passage of watercraft.

Over the last 24 years, increasing sediment has hindered access to the river, which is detrimental for the U.S. Coast Guard and the town harbormaster in emergency situations.

There have been times when the river has been so shallow, the harbormaster’s boat could not be launched from the Town Landing off Main Street. When there is a call for service and they can’t get the boat off the dock, the emergencies can’t be addressed right away.

“We have to go to Plan B,” said Essex police Chief and Harbormaster Peter Silva. That means trailering a small 15-foot Boston Whaler to Conomo Point to be launched from there.

“It’s really at an emergency level,” said Silva, “This whole area is filling in at a really dramatic level.”

Moulton advocated for the Essex River dredging project to be included in the WRDA, ensuring the project has the federal criteria it needs to occur, and U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, both Massachusetts Democrats, were instrumental in helping get the bill through the Senate this session. It was approved by the House in October.

Town Administrator Brendhan Zubricki said that for the dredging project to be eligible for federal funding, the federal river channel needs to be free of encroachments — otherwise known as docks, piers, and anything built to extend into the riverway.

A Town Meeting approved paying an engineering firm to look at the existing federal channel and create a solution to revise the federal boundary so that the encroachments would not need to be removed. Essentially, the firm came up with a plan to move the channel from one area to another, avoiding the encroachments.

“In some areas it was actually narrowed down,” said Zubricki. “We want to try to take advantage of what the natural processes are doing in the river’s system.”

In some areas, called scour zones, the water naturally moves more swiftly, clearing out the sediment. In other areas with less movement, the sediment builds, creating deposition zones. “Where possible, the engineer really tried to maximize the scour areas and minimize the deposition areas,” lessening the need for future dredging, Zubricki said.

In traditional dredging, the materials are deposited on an upward site or brought far offshore and dumped into the ocean. “In Essex, we really want to investigate keeping the materials that are being dredged in our marsh and river system,” Zubricki said. Predictions have been made about sea level rising due to climate change, and a potential mitigation strategy for that is to build up with the materials extracted from the river, such as in a sandbar.

Should Obama sign the bill, the town will ask the Army Corps of Engineers to perform a beneficial use study to determine the feasibility of re-using the material extracted from the Essex River bed.

“Dredging the Essex River is critically important to public safety, and I’m proud that we were successful in our efforts to include this dredging project in the final Water Resources Development bill heading to the president’s desk,” Moulton said in a prepared statement.

He said he believes this project will make the Essex River channel more navigable, ensure a safer environment and spur local job growth, while being conscious of the need to protect the environment.

The annual WRDA bill authorizes all water resources development projects carried out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Article here.