City Unveils Lake Decatur Dredging Plans

Decatur, a U.S. city, has been receiving applications for a dredging contractor until July 26. 

The contractor will reclaim an important piece of Lake Decatur’s capacity, reports The Business Journal of Midcenral Illinois.

“At first, we thought we were going to contract out individual basins (of the lake). We’ve elected to bundle that into a large, comprehensive dredging project, which will save us millions of dollars in mobilization and demobilization costs,” said Keith Alexander, the city’s director of water management.

As city Manager Ryan McCrady said, it is estimated that the project will cost the city $60 million, and it would take three to five years to complete.

“Our community needs to accept the fact that dredging needs to go on all the time,” McCrady said. “We can’t just dredge once and then we’re done. Water is constantly flowing into the lake. It’s constantly bringing sediment in.”

At the end of the project, Lake Decatur should have 29 percent more storage volume.

Read more:  Dredging Not the Cause of Sick Gladstone Fish

A final report on sick fish in Gladstone Harbour says flooding – not dredging – was the main cause of the problem, reports gladstoneobserver.com.au.

Some scientists, environmentalists and commercial fishermen have blamed suspended dredging sediments for a prolonged disease outbreak affecting seafood, turtles, dugong and other marine life, but Gladstone Ports Corporation and government scientists have maintained this was due to flooding in early 2011.

The study could not rule out dredging as one of the possible causes of the death of fish, however, it confirmed that dredging was not the main cause.