We’ve had to turn tons of people away because of the depth problem. “We get a lot of transient dockers coming from other harbors all over, to eat and go shopping in town. “The project is going to fill this harbor,” he said. Shellfish will stop getting smothered by silt.”Īnd the dredging will offer economic benefit to more than just shellfishermen, said Flanagan. “When we get that out of the channel, and start to have that material removed, we’ll have more productive shellfish beds and more productive farms. “They’re finding that their gear is sinking into that type of mud, and that shellfishing areas are getting covered in it,” she said. Shellfishing, said Shellfish Constable Nancy Civetta, is the town’s number-one year-round industry, with more than 15 percent of Wellfleet residents involved in it in some way.īut because of the enormous volume of silt and “black mayonnaise” - the muddy result of decaying organic material - in the harbor, Civetta said that, for the past few years, many shellfish farmers have been struggling. It’s literally lifesaving.”Īnd concerns about the harbor’s sedimentation extend to more than just safety. “Now we’ll be able to help them, day or night. “We had no legitimate ability to help any kind of vessel in distress for large periods of time,” he said. For Harbormaster Flanagan, whose area of responsibility includes all of Wellfleet Harbor and huge bayside swaths of the Outer Cape, that has posed an enormous problem. Water levels have become so low that, as of now, at half-tide or lower, there is no emergency access to or from the marina. It will, said Dredging Project Task Force co-chair Christopher Allgeier, pose a “minor inconvenience” to boating access. (Photo Marc Agger)įor the next two months or so, dredging will take place 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The tugboat Meaghan Marie accompanies the digger Woods I on the approach to sediment-choked Wellfleet Harbor on Friday in advance of the long-awaited dredging of the federal channel by the Army Corps of Engineers. More machinery is on its way, and Cashman Dredging, a Quincy-based company working with the Army Corps of Engineers, has set up trailer offices on the pier. The digger itself - Woods I - arrived in the harbor Friday afternoon. In a 2015 letter to the Army Corps of Engineers’ New England District’s Navigation Section chief, the then-five town selectmen, the town administrator, Harry Terkanian, the chair of the marina advisory committee, Joseph Aberdale, and Harbormaster Flanagan wrote, “Maintenance dredging of Wellfleet Harbor cannot wait.”įour years later came the news that the federal government would commit $5 million to dredging the channel, opening the door for the town to approve its own $7.5-million project upon the channel’s completion.Īnd now, the dredging campaign is coming to fruition. That’s why the town has spent years lobbying the Army Corps of Engineers to commit funding for the channel’s dredging. In order for the equipment the town needs to even enter its harbor, the federal channel needs to have been recently dredged. Wellfleet’s ability to dredge its parts of the harbor (which happened last in 2001) depends on the accessibility of the federal channel. But the process comes with a hefty price tag, and is an issue especially complicated in Wellfleet, where a federal channel cuts through state and town-owned portions of the harbor. And over the past two decades, it has grown so severe in Wellfleet Harbor that it borders on dangerous.ĭredging - the removal of sediment - is the standard solution. The process is natural, but still inconvenient. Like most waterways, Wellfleet Harbor is subject to sedimentation - the gradual buildup of sand, silt, and other debris at its bottom. “It’s just incredibly exciting,” said Wellfleet Harbormaster Michael Flanagan. WELLFLEET - It took a town-wide effort, a federal campaign, and 26 years, but the dredging of Wellfleet Harbor’s federal channel is set to begin on Oct.
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