Collier County is dredging sand out of Clam Pass to stop mangroves from dying. The waterway is the entry point to three bays and more than 300 acres of mangroves.
About eight acres of mangroves have already died.
A wildlife ecologist who consulted on the project said the current die off comes from heavy rainfall in January and February. Tim Hall said water had nowhere to go because Clam Pass was congested with sand.
“We had water that stacked up higher than normal and got high enough to the point where it started killing some of the mangrove trees out there,” he said.
Hall said it’s possible there could be more die off later because mangroves can be slow to react.
The pass has a history of closing up. Hall said it was initially dredged in 1999 after about 70 acres of mangroves died.
It was last dredged in in 2013. That emergency dredging was limited. The current project is larger in scale.
Federal and state agencies signed off on a 10 year dredging permit in March.
Stakeholders got the permit after a year and a half-long review process.
During that review, state and federal agencies looked at things like potential impacts to protected species like the smalltooth sawfish and manatee.
Hall said Collier County was issued the permit and it’s administered by the Pelican Bay Services Division, which is a special district that oversees the area.
Some locals have long awaited this step. Douglas Craig started a campaign in 2014 to dig out the pass. He said he showed up with shovels and wheelbarrows for nearly 700 days to move sand out of the water way himself.
Craig said it’s a relief dredging started and the pass never closed.
“I was really pleased that we were able to deliver a healthy mangrove -relatively healthy anyway - to the county for them to dredge it,” he said.
Engineers expect to finish dredging this week.
