Port 1 discusses dredging needs

Wahkiakum Port District No. 1 commissioners and staff continue to discuss the need to dredge the entrance channel to Cathlamet’s Elochoman Marina.

The commissioners and staff recapped the situation during a June 13 meeting.

As it has in many areas of the Cathlamet channel of the Columbia, shoaling has occurred, and the shallow waters are difficult for some boats to navigate.

One possible quick fix is prop washing the area, a term which refers to using the force generated by a boat’s propeller to remove the built-up silt.

The improvements would be temporary, though, because sediments would continue to build up unless further work was done in other parts of the river.

“What would help,” said Commissioner Larry Bonds, “would be to open the month of the Elochoman on the wildlife refuge.” It has silted considerably, to the degree that water flows upstream through Elochoman Slough to the marina entrance rather than out to the main channel of the Columbia, he said.

“One day we went down there and the tide ran the same direction both tides,” agreed Lea.

“Prop washing might knock off the hump out there at the opening,” Bonds concluded.

Lea told the commissioners that County Commissioners Blair Brady and Dan Cothren had assured her at a Council of Governments meeting earlier in the week that they had talked to the Corps of Engineers (who maintain the main shipping channel of the Columbia via dredging) on the port’s behalf, and that they would be meeting with a Corps representative again later in June.

Dredging isn’t an issue unique to Port No. 1. It will be on the agenda at a meeting of Columbia River port managers at the Port of St. Helens on June 27, Lea told the commissioners.

“We’ll just keep working on it, and let you know if we find out anything else,” she concluded.