Progress Reports
River Dredging Update
What have we accomplished: In April, 2019, the Army Corp of Engineers issued a suitability determination on the sampling of the dredging materials and the CT DEEP concurred. The Corp has identified the Sherwood Island Burrow Site as a potential disposal site and town officials and interested parties opined in support of the location. Now an Environmental Assessment (EA) is needed to further examine the disposal site. Once the EA is completed, the Corp will present the disposal site to the Long Island Sound Dredging Authority. Assuming that is approved, the dredging of the River would be authorized to proceed if funding for the dredging work is available. The last estimate had this cost at approximately $3M.
Update from the Town of Westport: It is still too premature to pursue capital and/or fundraising donations for the dredging work. The Downtown Plan Implementation Committee (DPIC) has a new Chair, Randy Herbertson who will be embarking on prioritizing several initiatives to revitalize downtown. This project is still supported by DPIC particularly for the benefit of reducing shoaling that contributes to flooding of nearby retailers.
Update from the Army Corp: In late 2019, the Corp informed the Town of Westport that the project was authorized. The Corp nonetheless, needed federal funding to allocate its staff resources to do the EA. The project did not make it onto the President’s Budget. The Corp has been able to reprogram some funding to move along with initial sampling efforts and is still scheduled for the sampling effort this fall. There is an internal Corp meeting scheduled to discuss the Sherwood Island Burrow Site work. Following that meeting, more information should be available.
Federal Elected Officials: Reached out to all Federal Elected Officials asking for their support given the recent notification about the Presidential Budget. In April, the town applied to Congressman Himes’ Congressional earmark funding application. I am happy to say that both Congressman Himes and Senator Murphy are recommending this project for Congressional earmark funding. Such funds are expected to be highly competitive. With the support of both Officials, we are hopeful that the project will stack up as it gets compared with other Congressional projects around the state and nation. At this point, the House is working through the process and we should know later this summer or early fall who are the selected applicants.
CT Port Authority: There are still no plans to release the Small Harbors grant program yet. It was last offered pre-pandemic in 2019. I’m told to keep checking in with the PA for updates. There are still no updates.