At left: The white lines in this waterways map of the Les Cheneaux islands are the federal channels where downstate contractor Malcolm Marine will dredge about 52,000 cubic yards of sediment, soil, and vegetation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded the contractor a $1.64 million contract for the project Thursday, September 24. (Image courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Malcolm Marine of St. Clair a $1.64 million contract to dredge the federal navigation channels in the Les Cheneaux waterways. The contract was awarded Thursday, September 24, and dredge crews from downstate could be seen in the Les Cheneaux area as early as this month.

Corps of Engineers officials said they don't expect the dredging company to start sending equipment until next summer, however, owing to several factors, including not enough time before cold weather becomes a factor and fish spawning schedules next spring. Representatives at Malcolm Marine did not make themselves available to The St. Ignace News for comment.

If the dredging crew does start the project this fall and is unable to complete it before weather becomes a factor, the project would not be able to be restarted until late July 2010, owing to a no-dredge period to allow for fish spawning that starts in mid-April.

"If I had to take a guess, I'd say next summer" is when the project will be started, said Angie Mundell, operations project manager for the Corps of Engineers. A start date has yet to be set.

Once the project start date is selected, the downstate contractor will have 180 days to dredge a 100- foot-wide and seven-foot-deep navigation channel from Government Bay into Cedarville Bay, and around to Urie Bay. The federal channel then continues down Snows Channel into Mackinac Bay, turning west between St. Ledger and Marquette islands, and then northwest into Hessel Bay. The middle entrance between Marquette and Little LaSalle islands will also be dredged. About 52,000 cubic yards of spoils are estimated to be dredged from the channel, and dumped at Taylors Pit on M-129 just north of Cedarville.

Ms. Mundell said Malcolm Marine was selected out of four contractors that bid for the project because it had the lowest bid. Other bids, from Morrish-Wallace Construction of Cheboygan, Faust Corporation in Detroit, and Luedtke Engineering in Frankfort, were as high as $2.2 million, she said.

In April 2009, the Corps of Engineers allocated $24 million for various Michigan waterways projects, including the Les Cheneaux channel dredging project. The Les Cheneaux federal channels have not been dredged since 1971, because of a local push to take the channels off a regular maintenance dredge cycle to improve fish repopulation.

Removing the channels from that schedule has had an adverse effect to the areas tourism. A lobbying effort by the Waterways Restoration Group has pushed for help from lawmakers and the Corps of Engineers to address sedimentation and weed growth in the channels around the Les Cheneaux Islands, claiming problems with navigation are harming the boating-dependent economy in the area.

Possible public dock expansion

John Torsky and Gary Reid of the Les Cheneaux Islands Waterways Restoration Group are meeting with Michigan departments of Environmental Quality and Natural Resources officials Thursday, October 22, in Lansing to finalize possible additional dredging in Cedarville Bay.

The purpose of the extra dredging is twofold: To expand the public access dock area on Meridian Street about 100 feet to the south, and to help remove some of the invasive weed species in Cedarville Bay. Mr. Torsky said the hope of the dock expansion down the road is to add transient docks and additional boat launch ramps at the public access site.

"When we go down there [Lansing], we want to say, Were trying to create some community betterment by getting the channels dredged.' We want to dovetail that with improving Cedarville Harbor," Mr. Torsky said at the Choose Les Cheneaux Luncheon Thursday, September 24.

Ms. Mundell said the additional work is unlikely to be federally funded, however, Malcolm Marine is approved to dredge enough into the bay to be able to maneuver its barges and equipment to a transfer site to unload dredge spoils, she said. Members of the Waterways Restoration Group are lobbying to get the contractor to set up that transfer site at the public access dock.

"The Corps [of Engineers] would not pay for additional dredging; the community would have to pay for that," Ms. Mundell said. "All our work has to be federally authorized. That work is not federally authorized."