Dredging is nearly complete at the Joseph Sylvia State Beach. For much of the fall, the Edgartown dredge has been pumping sand out of Sengekontacket, deepening a channel on the Oak Bluffs side, with the spoils trucked to Cow Bay for beach nourishment.
Norman Rankow, chairman of the dredge committee, said last week that the work in the area is winding down. The dredge will be removed from the pond probably by mid-January.
In what conservation commission leaders are calling the worst violation they have seen in decades, a West Chop homeowner has been cited for dredging a pond and filling a wetland without permission.
The property is owned by Mary Howell of Arlingon, Va., and Vineyard Haven.
Last April Oak Bluffs voters approved borrowing $500,000 to pay for a dredging project in Sengekontacket Pond, but this week town administrator Michael Dutton said the town is having difficulty keeping the long-stalled project under budget.
The Army Corps of Engineers will dredge a 10-foot channel in the Oak Bluffs harbor in the coming weeks, to improve navigation and provide safe access for boats entering the marina.
There was a 30-day public comment period on the plan nearly six years ago. No comments were received.
This week the Corps released updated details about the project. While the project approved six years ago called for 5,800 cubic yards of sand to be removed, the amount has now been reduced to 3,500 cubic yards, as the town conducted an emergency dredge of the harbor in 2006.
To dredge or not to dredge? That is the question currently being bandied about in West Tisbury.
A specially-appointed research committee has split over whether to dredge Mill Pond, the historic man-made pond that graces the entrance to town on the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road adjacent to the police station. Two of the committee members, Bob Woodruff and Craig Saunders, believe that dredging is necessary to prevent the pond from drying up and disappearing forever.
Nessie is her name. A new dredge for the Edgartown Great Pond was launched on Wednesday afternoon before a crowd of 50 friends and riparian owners around the pond. Nessie will begin her work in November by dredging the bottom and helping to improve circulation in the pond. The first project will involve removing a sandbar that has built up in the pond near the site where it is opened to the sea. Dredging the area is expected to make future openings to the sea stay open for longer periods of time. Other dredging projects will follow.
