York County officials have begun exploring a potential dredging of the county’s waterways, an effort they say will help make some of the waterways more navigable.
Officials are in preliminary stages, so little is clear on what will ultimately happen. The issue – illustrated by what it would cost to dredge Wormley Creek – was tucked into the last slides of a lengthy presentation shown to the York County Board of Supervisors at their retreat in January.
“I think there are certain waterways that are not as navigable as they once were,” said County Administrator James McReynolds. “Dredging would improve some of them.”
Dredging is a process that removes built-up material from the bottom of a waterway and deposits it elsewhere to improve the flow of the waterway.
“Down there [Wormley Creek], apparently you can hardly paddle a rowboat through that creek, let alone power boats and sailboats,” said the chairman of the York Supervisors, Walt Zaremba, in a January interview.
Zaremba said there could be a survey of citizens in the future to figure out what kind of interest they have in the project.
Funding and the exact places that would be dredged are still unknown as the effort is in an exploratory phase. McReynolds said the current thinking behind the project is that it will only affect residential areas.
During discussion of possible dredging projects during the board’s January 12 retreat, Supervisor Don Wiggins mentioned cost-sharing scenarios that could involve a marina owner and the U.S. Coast Guard, which operates its training center on the West Branch of Wormley Creek.
With an estimated cost of $50 per cubic foot, the Wormley Creek project is estimated to cost approximately $395,000. The Powerpoint highlighted a number of ways the project could be funded, including grants, general tax dollars and a special service district.
“The most likely scenario would be a special service district,” McReynolds said. “There would be a tax or fee assessed to the benefiting property owners.”
The creation of a service district is permissible under Virginia law, which allows localities to create special districts where they can levy taxes and fees to enable specific services in the district.
McReynolds said the county has not undertaken a dredging project like this before. He said more information is likely to come later in the year, following the conclusion of the budget process in May.
