GRAND LAKE ST. MARYS, Ohio (WLIO) - Grand Lake St. Marys State Park is gearing up for this year's dredging operations as their dredge crew is fully staffed for the first time in six years.
Current plans include dredging at Bass Landing, Hidden Shores, Harbor Point, the campground lagoon area, Sandy Beach, the Sailboat Club and Prairie Creek. According to park manager David Faler, around 100,000 cubic yards of sediment enters Grand Lake as rain transports silt and soil from fields into creeks and eventually the lake. The added sediment shallows up the lake, and the program aims to remove this sediment for safe navigation.
"We try to make sure that all these channels are navigable, and that's what our dredge program concentrates on, making sure that there are silt traps in front of those channels," said Faler. "Once those silt traps fill in, they come back, and they dredge them out with the wind and the wave action it takes, and it will pull silt off the bottom of the lake, and it will deposit in front of other channels. It's very prominent here at Grand Lake, the dredges go in and they remove that sediment."
Should the dredge program remain fully staffed, Grand Lake's three dredges may operate full time in 2027.
