ROCKLAND – Dredging Lermond Cove will have to wait until fall, trustees of the Rockland Port District decided Friday.

In a 3-1 vote, with trustee Howard Edwards Jr. opposing, the panel chose to wait until Nov. 27 to begin trucking dredge material from the harbor across the city to the landfill.

Edwards said he was in favor of starting the job now and getting it done.

Although summer traffic was a concern for the trustees, the overriding worry was the possibility of offensive odors emanating from the truckloads of dredge spoils during the summer heat. The transporting could take up to six weeks.

The trustees plan to dredge silt from the bottom of the cove to create four berths for cruise schooners and prevent underwater erosion.

The trustees met with Gary Neville, project manager for Prock Marine, the contractor for the job, at City Hall to discuss the options. Prock Marine had won a low bid of $210,000, based on a cubic yard rate for an estimated 10,000 cubic yards.

“We’re all right with that date,” Neville said, “but we couldn’t wait any longer. Our contract goes to next February.”

“The deck is stacked against dredging in July,” said trustees president Capt. Dick Spear, who feared getting started and being forced to stop before the project is finished.

The dredge spoils will be dewatered before they are trucked from the site and taken to the landfill to be buried.

Spear said getting permits from state and federal agencies has been “a struggle,” explaining the latest delay.

After the project was approved initially in 2004, it became bogged down in federal bureaucracy for years, waiting for Congress to pass a federal law deauthorizing a 200-foot federal channel that stood in the way. Federal law passed in December 2007 cleared the way for the trustees to proceed.

In February 2008, the trustees had to ask the city to grant a landfill waiver fee for housing an additional 2,900 cubic yards in addition to the 7,100 cubic yards approved in 2004, after trustees learned they would have to change the design of the berth and take out more silt. The City Council voted 4-1, with former Councilor James Thompson opposing, to grant the additional waiver.

In a related matter, the trustees decided to put out financing bid requests to banks in the area to get the lowest rate. Although the district has money in the bank, trustees would like to finance the project. Other expenses besides dredging include installation of pilings in the cove.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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