Dredge returning to Sunny Sands

A dredge doing ship channel maintenance should start beach nourishment on Puget Island’s Sunny Sands this week.

Wahkiakum County Public Works Director Pete Ringen presented a completed US Army Corps of Engineers permit for the project to the county board of commissioners on Tuesday. With the board’s approval, Ringen signed the permit on behalf of the county.

The project will allow dredgers to place sand in eroding areas near Pancake Point. The crews will first fill a scour hole below a navigation channel jetty and then place sand on the beach.

The dredge crews planned to move in the area yesterday (Wednesday), Ringen said, and they warn residents there will be 24-hour noise and night time lights while they’re working in the area.

Another project is still awaiting its permit, Ringen said. The county has planned for spoils to be dumped in the county sand pit at the lower end of Ostervold Road and along adjacent eroding shorelines, but that permit still hasn’t been issued, he said.

Ringen said a holdup seems to be a requirement that a screen be placed in the intake for a hopper dredge, which sucks sand off the bottom of the river and dumps it back in the water in another spot.

That drew ire from Commissioner George Trott. The project calls for a pipeline dredge that pumps the spoils ashore for disposal on land, he said.

“Nobody reads what they put in these permits,” he said. “How do you put a screen over a cutting head?”

Ringen said he would continue conversation with the Seattle Corps office in an effort to get the permit while the dredge is still in the area.