Politics & Government

Feds Invite Bids To Dredge Mattituck Inlet

Job calls for 100,000 cubic yards of material dredged and repurposed along coast.

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers officially posted its invitation for bids (IFB) to complete the multi-million dollar task of dredging Mattituck Inlet and restoring eroded shoreline east of the inlet’s jetty this fall.

The Army will begin collecting those bid proposals by mid-October. The selected contractor will be charged with scooping 90,000 cubic yards of material from the inlet and placing a 22-foot strip of new beach that will stretch for roughly 4,500 feet east from the eastern jetty. In addition, 10,000 cubic yards of material will be scooped from the western side of the jetty where the current has stacked a sand drift.

The Army is only considering small business entities for the job, with a small business standard of $33.5 million. That means contractors bidding for the work can not exceed $33.5 million in employee payroll and average annual receipts. The job is expected to cost anywhere between $1 million and $5 million.

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Earlier this year Congressman Tim Bishop applauded the federal government’s plan, back when funds were first secured for the job.

"This project has been a top priority for Southold Town for over a decade, and I advocated strongly for it to move forward as quickly as possible to ensure the navigability of the inlet and protect the homes east of the inlet threatened by erosion," Bishop stated in a May release. "Now the necessary dredging and shoreline protection will move forward at the same time, maximizing the effectiveness of federal dollars.

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According to Bishop’s office, the work is made possible under a rarely used CAP 111 provision of the River and Harbor Act of 1968, which seeks to mitigate erosion damage to federal and private shoreland at 100-percent cost to the federal government.

The CAP 111 Mattituck project will ostensibly widen Mattituck Inlet, which was built in 1906 and cut down on shoaling, which has damaged the inlet itself. The work will begin sometime after bids are awarded late fall.



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