The N.J. Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has reached the decision to extend the season for Bayside Dredging works from February 28 to March 31.
This was announced yesterday by the Ocean City Mayor, Jay Gillian, who received the word from the NJDEP that the season for dredging activity in the bay has been prolonged to March 31.
As stated in the release, the extension provides Ocean City residents an additional month to arrange for dredging their private slips.
“ The extension of in-water dredging activity is a result of current data provided to NJDEP’s Division of Fish and Wildlife showing protected fish migration begins closer to April 1 than previously believed ,” the officials said.
According to the notice, this extension gives residents an additional four weeks for slip dredging and alleviates concerns about insufficient time to complete work prior to the cutoff date. Trident Marine and Scarborough Marine Group are actively working to coordinate and complete dredging of private properties for interested homeowners.
The program has successfully completed dredging of 95,000 cubic yards from city waters and 54,000 cubic yards from state channels over the past three years. Slip owners have taken advantage of the opportunity to remove close to 41,000 cubic yards through private dredging efforts.
The mayor will hold a town hall meeting later this winter to present the 2019-2020 dredge program currently being designed to maintain open waterways in Ocean City.