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Oriental resident Dan Allen has guided Friends Of Whittaker Creek to raise funds and dredge Whittaker Creek. Dan writes in with an update:

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hanks again to everyone who’s donated to help us get the main channel to Whittaker Creek dredged. Here’s a summary of what’s been happening:

Dan Allen

* The dredging pipes arrived on November 6th

• Spoils site work is complete so the site is ready to accept material dredged from the channel.
• The dredging contract has been approved by the Town and signed with King Dredging.
• Dredging pipes will be set up over the next few days and the dredge should arrive the week of Nov 10th.
• Dredging will take about 30 days to complete.
• The Government shutdown has cut Coast Guard operations to essential only, so they can’t do anything with the marks, and the longer the shutdown lasts, the farther they get behind. They have drawings of the new permitted channel as well as the electronic data TI Coastal provided so they can use it to update their data.
• The Coast Guard is aware markers 1 through 4 will need to move. In an ideal situation, markers 3 & 4 would be moved before the dredge, but with the shutdown, that’s doubtful. We’ve asked that they add markers where the channel shifts direction slightly.

Please be cautious if you’re navigating the channel during dredging. King should be monitoring VHF channel 13, it’s best to hail them and discuss the best way to proceed. They should have daymarks posted on top of the dredge indicating which side is best to pass the dredge on. Remember “diamonds are a girls best friend” – so you’ll want to pass on the side of the dredge that is displaying two black diamond daymarks.

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