The channel at Davis Creek in the Bavon area of Mathews has become so shoaled-in after more than five decades without being dredged that a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers derrick boat that was sent there recently to take borings for an upcoming dredge project got stuck.

Mathews Planning Commission member Harry Meeks said he was at Davis Creek Marina visiting owner Craig Mulligan when he saw the 104-foot-long Elizabeth get free and dock at the marina, and he spoke with the geological engineer overseeing the project. He said she told him the project, which would dredge an 80-foot-wide channel to a depth of 8 feet, would be done in 2025 or 2026. It will be the first time the federal channel has been dredged since 1971. The Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission is concurrently trying to move the project along under a contract with Mathews County.

The fact that there are serious efforts being made to dredge the channel is good news for Mulligan, who said if the channel isn’t dredged soon, “it’s just a matter of time before I have to close. You can’t throw good money after bad.” In recent years, Mulligan’s business has declined so much he stopped selling gas because “it evaporated faster than I could sell it.” Large boats that would once have come to his marina instead anchor around New Point Comfort Lighthouse because they can’t get in the channel, so he’s been catering to small fishing boats instead. He has slips that could accommodate up to 55-foot boats, he said, “but you’ve gotta have the water depth for them to come in here.”

“Watermen long for the day when it’s back like it used to be,” he said.Mulligan said a dredged channel would mean he could almost double the size of his marina, increasing 24-foot in-water slips to 49 feet overnight. Davis Creek is “the best location on the (Mobjack) bay,” he said, because it’s almost due north of Norfolk, it has no wave action, and it’s an “easy-in, easy-out” site.

If the channel were dredged, he said, “I’d put money out for a transient dock and a floating dock and make it more boater-friendly for snowbirds and everybody else.”

Dredge spoils site needed

One of the hold-ups on dredging Davis Creek has been finding sites to place the dredge material once it’s removed from the bottom. Meeks said he’d been speaking with property owners in the area and has gotten verbal commitments for several sites totaling over 50 acres, including 18 acres in one place, 15 acres in another, and several smaller parcels—nine acres here, six acres there, three acres elsewhere. Some property owners are interested in selling their land, while some would like compensation on a lease basis. One person only wants the county to pick up their tax bill for the duration of the lease, he said.

Mathews County Administrator Ramona Wilson said that it’s gotten to the point where dredging the creek is critical. At low tide, some spots only have three feet of water, she said.

The borings taken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will help determine the amount of material that needs to be removed at various depths, said Wilson. Then it can be determined how much land is needed for disposal and what land can be used for that purpose.

“We’re weighing what land we have available, then we’ll determine how deep we’re going to go,” she said.

A change in grant funding for such projects now allows localities to use grant funds to purchase land, she said.

MPPDC overseeing project

Curt Smith, deputy director of the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission, said the commission is under contract with Mathews County to “advance the project as quickly as we can.” He said he has acquired two different Virginia state grants to help pay for the dredging—a $600,000 grant from the Virginia Port Authority Waterway Maintenance Fund and an $876,969 grant from the state Department of Conservation and Recreation Community Flood Preparedness Fund.

Design work for the project was completed in 2020 with grant funds, he said.

If the county chooses to go with state funding for the project, said Smith, any costs not paid for by the grants will have to be covered by the county. The county can also choose to wait for the Army Corps of Engineers to do the work, which would be paid for with federal funding, he said, but would have more stringent requirements for placement of the dredge spoils, would take longer in terms of regulatory procedures and permitting, and could require marshland acreage for thin-layer spraying. The Corps is prioritizing building up tidal marshes that are being drowned by sea level rise.

The material that needs to be dredged is mostly mud, with some fine sand mixed in, said Smith. Tests show that the dredge material is clean of contaminants. The ideal solution would be to place the material in an upland area, he said. In the past, upland disposal was like creating a landfill, but new technologies provide options for reusing the material instead. It could be left at the dredge-fill site, he said, then dug up and transported elsewhere for such uses as manufacturing concrete products, being placed in geo-textile tubes for shoreline protection, or just being used as fill material.

A permanent upland holding area could be established that would allow for disposal of material from future dredging projects, he said, or a site could be set up for just one particular dredging project.

“It’s ultimately up to the county,” said Smith. “We told the Corps that we’re going to stay our path and move forward as fast as possible. There will still be a future need because a 10-year maintenance cycle is needed. By the time we get done, perhaps the Corps can assist with maintenance down the road.”

While time is of the essence, he said, “one thing that makes it move faster is money, and we have crossed that hurdle.”

Corps moving ahead, as well

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the beginning stages of the project to dredge Davis Creek, said project manager and civil engineer Joe McMahon with the Norfolk District.

A Dredged Material Placement Alternatives Analysis (DMPAA) is underway, he said, explaining that samples of the sediment taken from the site in June have been sent to a lab in Norfolk’s sister district in Savannah, Georgia, for the analysis. This involves a breakdown of the various materials found in the sediment samples. The results will “allow us to make informed decisions about the suitability of dredged material for different placement alternatives,” he said. However, those results won’t be ready for a few months and require consultation with environmental resource agencies.

The Corps is relying on congressional funding and authorizations for the project, said McMahon in an email exchange. Thus far, $265,000 was provided in the 2022 President’s Budget for development of plans and specifications, while $1.85 million was provided in the Fiscal Year 2023 Work Plan for design and construction of a dredged material placement site (within the limits of the funding). However, no funding has been provided for the actual dredging of the channel.

McMahon said the Corps is “working with Mathews County and local project stakeholders to determine the feasibility of non-traditional placement options.” These options could include such beneficial uses as layering the dredge material on marshlands to build them up and enable the grasses to grow even as the sea level rises. The amount of marshland that would be needed for this use depends on several environmental factors that the team is working on determining, he said, adding that the team is also working on upland placement based on the June channel survey volumes.
Analysis of the materials will also help determine the “least cost, environmentally acceptable placement alternative that is consistent with sound engineering principles,” said McMahon, explaining that this is the Federal Standard for projects.

Once it’s decided where the spoils will be placed, he said, the team can work on plans and specifications for the placement site.

Addressing the amount of time it’s been since the channel was last dredged, McMahon said that a combination of funding constraints and lack of a suitable placement area for the dredged material “has limited our ability to maintain the channel.”

“However,” he said, “the project team has performed preliminary site surveys and desktop analysis to assess the suitability of upland placement sites in the vicinity of the channel.”

McMahon said the Corps is working in tandem with the MPPDC to find a solution for Davis Creek.

“We look forward to working with the PDC on solutions to the challenges we have faced in dredging Davis Creek and finding a suitable dredge placement site,” he said. “Hopefully one that will result in the beneficial use of the material.”

He added, “We’re looking forward to continued collaboration and communication with our valued stakeholders to ensure the Davis Creek project is completed and navigation is restored in the channel.”