Cold Lake’s Marina dredging brings the noise, removes the silt

Cold Lake’s Marina dredging is continuing — noisily.

The constant droning noise heard at the Marina has been underway for almost two weeks, as the City has gone ahead with removing the silt and much from the bottom of the lake.

“People gotta realize that we got probably 30-40 years worth of silt in the bottom of the marina. And it’s just like maintaining a road, eventually, you have to deal with it,” said Mayor Craig Copeland. 

This maintenance does not come cheaply, as Copeland acknowledged.

With top-off funding from city council this year, $750,000 was set aside to complete this week, which is hoped to be finished by May long weekend.

The silt had a nasty way of bunging the bottoms of resident’s sailboats. With weeds also accumulating at the bottom, the City bit the bullet to get the project done.

The lake level is also lower than usual after little rain this spring.

By removing the silt and sludge, that should also give the lake a boost.

“The idea is to get down to the clay at the bottom of the lake, and then everything’s pumped up. Then it goes through a pipeline. They actually have almost like a screening box where they screen out everything.

“The material, the silt or the soils, I guess, is going to be kept instead of going back in the lake, the water does return to the lake. And of course anybody’s down here, they’ll know that the Marine is very silty. And that’s because just the disturbing of the bottom, that’s very natural,” said Copeland. 

This sludge will then be collected and hauled to the Cold Lake North’s snow dumping area.