Lake Worth’s C-51 Advisory Board: A looming issue of community concern, advise, and direction going forward.

As yet, there are no more updates about this blog post from 2 weeks ago: “Dredged material from Palm Beach to be dumped in Intracoastal, but not off West Palm Beach as planned.”

Note the dredged material from Palm Beach will not be dumped on the Lake Worth side of the Intracoastal (aka, Lake Worth Lagoon) but on the eastern side of the lagoon south of the Robert Harris (Lake Worth) bridge and north of Hypoluxo Island. But as you’ll read a little later, the C-51 Canal between the cities of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth is a significant part of this story; Lake Worth’s C-51 Advisory Board could play a vital role.

The news below in the Palm Beach Daily News (aka, the Shiny Sheet) slipped ‘under the radar’ so to speak. An article by Aleese Kopf titled, “Lake Worth Lagoon dredging project to begin this summer”:

Lakefront residents [Everglades Island in Palm Beach] are looking forward to an Intracoastal dredging project this summer that will allow them access to their private docks at low tide. [emphasis added]
     After a short pause to work out a dump site for the dredged muck, the project is on track and scheduled to begin this summer.

and. . .

     The project is to dredge three waterways from Midtown to the South End. The north channel is between Everglades Island and the Southern Boulevard Causeway; the central one is south of the causeway to Widener’s Curve; and the south waterway is south of Widener’s to north of Sloan’s Curve.
     The contractor had planned to dump the dredged material in John’s Hole, an underwater site on the West Palm Beach side of the lagoon west of Sloan’s Curve and John’s Island near the C-51 canal.
     “The property owners adjacent to that hole have expressed concern to the regulatory agencies,” Public Works Director Paul Brazil told the council.

and. . .

     Instead, Palm Beach residents are paying the extra money to haul the dredged material to Bonefish Cove. Bonefish Cove is a county “living shorelines” project to raise the elevation of the lagoon and create three small mangrove islands and oyster reefs between the Lake Worth Bridge and Hypoluxo Island.
     The channel dredging project is expected to take about seven months.

Learn more about Bonefish Cove using this link, another article by Aleese Kopf. This issue could be taken up by the City of Lake Worth’s C-51 Canal Advisory Board to find out what is happening vis-à-vis the permitting process at the County level. What were/are the concerns raised by residents of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth to dumping this dredged material in John’s Hole, “west of Sloan’s Curve and John’s Island near the C-51 canal”?

“Stay tuned”, as they say.