Driftwood Key digs for final dredging permits

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, July 26, 2006

HANSVILLE — After a three-year process, the Driftwood Key Club may finally be ready to dredge the entrance to Coon Bay and complete a project that many residents have been advocating for just as long.

But while the removal of 29,000 cubic yards of sediment from the bottom of the bay’s entrance would facilitate access for boaters in the growing Hood Canal neighborhood, not everyone is onboard with the idea or sold on the pitch that it won’t hurt the environment.

“It’s fairly split,” DKC Vice President Joe Masterson said of Driftwood Key. “Some (people) have purely for environmental concerns.”

“There’s certainly a local group with issues,” agreed DKC President Bill Buegel. “We have 600 members if not more, and we got calls from two of them. Everybody would like to see it happen. There’s always the few who have complaints. Those are valid complaints and are important.”

But with the majority in favor of the project, it is moving forward — albeit slowly — after garnering approval from the Kitsap County Commissioners in November 2004.

Depending on whether the Army Corps of Engineers issued-permits come in this summer or fall, the project could start as early as December and run through mid-February 2007, Masterson said, noting that the timeframe represents the available dredging window.

If the Corps OKs the work, the sediment will be removed by a barge with a clamshell dredge and shipped to an open-water dumping site near Port Townsend or Port Gardner, according to the public notice of application for permit.

As far as the environment is concerned, proponents of the 5.6-acre dredge, which would increase the depths of the inlet’s entrance to minus 8 feet and the east bay to a minus 6 feet, are citing a similar project that occurred in 1993.

“It depends on what the baseline is,” Masterson said about the potential environmental impacts, adding that when the entrance was dredged in 1993, a patch of eel grass was in the way. That patch, however, returned after the channels were cleared, and Masterson said this is expected to happen again when the channel is cleared. “It was dredged before and (the eel grass) grew back.”

The east bay is more of a question. It hasn’t been dredged since it was created in 1963 when environmental restrictions were much looser but every precaution will be taken, proponents assure.

Mother Nature aside, for some opponents, the dredge comes down to dollars and cents.

After all not everyone in Driftwood Key owns a boat and while some have been hesitant to ante up for project, Masterson and Buegel insist that the dredging will increase property values in the upper middle class community.

“It’ll be close to $1 million in total costs,” Masterson said. “We won’t know until after the permits come back. It’s all coming from the easements of the memberships.”

In December 2004, Driftwood Key property owners’ dues were raised from $222 to $370 to help pay for the dredging, among other projects. In total, Masterson said, the 600 or so members of the DKC will have each provided about $1,700 to the project.

As far as the dredging is concerned, much of the sediment has accumulated from two sources, Buegel said. Naturally, the sediment and the Hood Canal would have filled in the channels eventually.

The second source is from runoff erosion from construction projects that have cropped up in recent years in the area.

“There are issues with runoff,” Buegel said. “There has been quite a lot of construction lately. Things have changed so much over the years.”

The question facing DKC and the dredging committee now is how deep to dig. If they get the OK, Buegel said they hope to dredge an additional two feet of sediment, which could mean an extra five to seven years before having to dredge again.

“It’s a viable project,” Buegel said, adding this project won’t fade away because it has to be done. “This thing goes away, then what?”