Franklin county asks congressman to find funding for Eastpoint dredging

            County Commissioners have asked Congressman Gwen Graham to look try to find some money to dredge the Eastpoint Channel.

A member of the congresswoman’s staff was at Tuesday’s county commission meeting so commissioner Cheryl Sanders took the opportunity to bring up the issue.

Franklin County has been trying for decades to dredge the Eastpoint channel – with no luck.

The channel has filled in so much that even smaller boats like oyster boats have had problems using the channel at certain times without lifting their motors and poling their way out.

Larger vessels like shrimp boats find the channel almost unusable.

The project was actually funded a number of years ago, but the money wound up being diverted to repairs after Hurricane Katrina and has never been replaced.

In 2013 the county even received the necessary permit from the State of Florida to dredge the Eastpoint Channel – that was the first permit approved to dredge the channel since the breakwater was built in 1984.

That permit allows for disposal of the spoil behind the existing breakwater.

Now the county just needs to find the money to do the work – the last cost estimate for the dredging project was about 3 million dollars.

Commissioners asked that congressman Graham’s office try to find the funding to finally make the channel useable again.

http://live.oysterradio.com/