A maintenance dredging scheme at Ninilchik was completed in May 2017 by Alaska Marine Excavation, despite a late start because of ice, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska District, said in its latest facebook post.
The team than moved to Dillingham and finished dredging operations ahead of schedule on June 9.
Ninilchik’s small boat harbor consists of a mooring basin, designed to hold 32 boats, in the mouth of the Ninilchik River just upstream of where it drains into Cook Inlet.
A 50 foot-wide channel, with a depth of 9 feet above the average lowest tidal line, leads from the basin into the Inlet and is passable at high tide.
The flow of the Ninilchik River and the currents of Cook Inlet fill the harbor basin and channel mouth with sand, silt, and gravel. To preserve the harbor, the Army Corps has been dredging it annually since it was built in 1961.
Both harbors are ready for the opening of the commercial fishing season, USACE said.
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