Santa Cruz Harbor (CA) has just presented an update on the ongoing entrance channel dredging project.
In their December newsletter they said that during the first few weeks of the season, the crew made steady progress digging out toward the harbor mouth along the western side of the channel.
“ Addressing shoaling along the western margins creates needed capacity to help reduce shoaling of the center channel. It also ensures that shoulder areas remain deep enough to place anchors and it provides a safe mooring area for dredge Twin Lakes west of the navigation channel ,” the harbor said in the newsletter.
They also added that though sand will continue to be transported into the harbor entrance with winter storms, the favorable weather and sea conditions experienced in the first few weeks allowed the crew to extend beyond the jetty mouth and deepen some areas directly outside of the entrance.
“ With winter weather upon us, it is incumbent upon vessel skippers to be aware of, and assess depths in the entrance channel prior to transit. Skippers with deeper draft vessels need to be especially vigilant ,” officials said.
Progress was also reported for the north harbor dredging where crews are deepening the X-J channel. For this part of the scheme, they have mobilized the Port’s 8″ dredge Squirt to the western side of J-Dock.