When J. Michael Keyworth wakes up in the morning, his first thought is of high tide. As general manager of Cove Haven Marina in Barrington, at Bullock Cove, he is at the tide’s mercy. Bullock Cove has not been dredged since 1962, the year the marina was built, and no major dredging of the Providence River has taken place since 1971.
Therefore, marina managers like Keyworth struggle, as the silting in the Providence River has made the river channel shallower and shallower, to the point at which many marinas have lost slips. The marina at Cove Haven has lost two or three feet since it was last dredged. In some places the water is only six inches deep at low tide, he said.
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The loss of slips is a problem. But for Keyworth and the managers of other marinas, the real problem is that they can no longer get the price they want for the slips that remain, because boat owners cannot use their boats as much as they would like, said Keyworth, who is also director of the Rhode Island Marine Trade Association.
”I currently wake up every day thinking about when the tide is high – that’s when most of our activity can occur,” Keyworth said. “People can’t use their boats when the tide is low.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is now considering a plan to dredge 4.3 million cubic yards of sediment from the shipping channel. But it is not scheduled to release a final Environmental Impact Statement on the project until the spring of 2001.
Meanwhile, marinas must find a way to deal with the silt. One of the problems, Keyworth said, is that Rhode Island has yet to approve an in-water disposal site for dredge spoils, as states such as Connecticut, Maryland and Massachusetts have done. Keyworth said he has considered dredging and taking his spoils to an upland disposal site. But this will cost $55 a cubic yard, and he has 67,000 cubic yards to remove.
A 1996 state law, the Marine Infrastructure Maintenance Act, directed the state Coastal Resources Management Council to find in-water disposal sites that marinas such as Cove Haven could use. Four sites have since been identified, one north of Conimicut Point, one north of the Newport Bridge, and two along the state’s South Shore.
The management council hired a consultant to study the four sites. In August of last year, the report came in. Now, the council is conducting a study that will supplement the consultant’s report, said Jeff Willis, supervising environmental planner for the council. The report, which will be ready by this spring, will help marinas when they apply to use any of the four disposal sites.
A marina that wants to use the sites must earn the approval of the Coastal Resources Management Council, the state Department of Environmental Management – which reviews the effect the disposal would have on water quality – and the Army Corps of Engineers, which serves as the lead federal agency in reviewing applications for the disposal of dredge materials in the water. Other federal agencies that have a say in the application process are the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
CONCERNED about the water depth at his marina is Robert Lavin of Lavin’s Marina in Barrington.
The supplemental report will attempt to anticipate and answer scientific questions the corps might ask about the four disposal sites, Willis said. For example, it may want to know that all other disposal options have been explored, he said.
The supplemental report is needed because, “There’s still some outstanding questions that (the) Army Corps would ask,” he said. “We’re trying to look at those issues.”
While nothing stops marinas from applying to use the identified in-water sites now, the supplemental report will make it easier for applicants because it provides scientific analysis that the applicant would likely need to gain approval from the Army Corps, Willis indicated.
Keyworth said disposing dredge materials in one of these four sites would cut his disposal cost to $4 to $7 a cubic yard. He added that many people have misconceptions about what lies at the bottom of marinas such as his. Unlike the spoils that have filled the Providence River shipping channel, much of which are contaminated, the silt at marinas are clean and suitable for disposal in-water, he said.
”I think there’s a misconception that the material we have is unclean; that’s not the case,” he said. He added that the silting of the cove is a natural process. “The natural process of nature is to fill in the areas that are deepest, channels tend to fill in. Dredge material is really what nature has re-deposited.”
But once it is deposited it must be removed in order for the boating industry to survive, Keyworth and others argue.
Meanwhile, Greenwich Bay Marina in Warwick last November filed an application with the Army Corps to dredge to expand its perimeter. The marina also needs maintenance dredging, a marina employee said.
Keyworth noted that boats today displace more water than in the past. While a typical racing boat once displaced six or seven feet, today’s racing boats can displace 10 feet or more, he said. Boats today displace anywhere from 12 inches to 20 feet, he said. While few boats are at the extremes, many are in the middle, he said.
”In general, boats are getting deeper, not shallower,” he said.
This makes dredging all the more important, he said. And the state’s failure to dredge the Providence River, or come up with acceptable in-water disposal sites sooner, has been frustrating.
”We’ve got a great industry that we’re sort of kicking the legs out from (under),” he said. “It’s like buying a car, and never being able to take it to the garage (for service).”
