Port of Everett commissioners earlier this month agreed to seek out bidders who could finish maintenance dredging at the Jetty Landing Boat Launch.
The work at 10th Street and West Marine View Drive involves dredging up to 41,000 cubic yards — roughly about 4,000 dump truck loads — of river sediment that has built up in the launch basin. The work is anticipated to start in the winter and take place through early 2022.
The vote comes after the port teamed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to seek emergency authorization broadening its authorization to dredge beyond the launch footprint.
The port has said that it’s trying to address a sandbar forming in the river, which is tightening access between the high-use public facility and the Snohomish River Navigation Channel. If the authorization is given, an additional 8,000 cubic yards could be removed to develop a channel through the sandbar.
“We have reached a point where dredging the launch and establishing reliable access to and from the navigation channel is imperative to keeping this public facility operating as intended,” port CEO Lisa Lefeber said.
“Thousands of boaters depend on the launch and surrounding waterways to be accessible at all tide levels, including our local emergency responders who provide critical on-the-water life safety services,” she added. “Having a response vessel unable to reach the river channel during a rescue mission could quickly become a life or death situation and we cannot have that.”
In the meantime, the port is telling boaters to “launch with care by checking tides for anticipated departure and return times and understanding vessel draft.’
