Dredging

The Columbia Association is moving toward approving half the additional money needed to dredge Lake Kittamaqundi to the depth originally planned after heavy storms in the past four years dumped unexpectedly high levels of silt into it. Thursday night, a CA committee of two board members — Suzanne Waller of Town Center and Kathleen Dragovich of Dorsey's Search — accepted a staff proposal to recommend that the full board add $1.3 million...

Columbia officials agreed Thursday to spend another $1.2 million to complete the dredging of Columbia's largest lake, bringing the total cost of the project to $6.5 million, according to two Columbia Association board members. Dredging of the town's two other lakes, Kittamaqundi, and Wilde lake, are soon to get underway. The Columbia Association board approved shifting $700,000 in excess funds from the Wilde Lake project to Elkhorn, and added $488,000 more. Consultants had reported that far more sediment had washed into Elkhorn and Kittamaqundi since 2006 ,when original measurements for the work were taken, so the cost to reach the desired depths rose.

Visitors who expect to see clear waters at Columbia's Lake Elkhorn after a multimillion-dollar dredging is complete in December will likely find algae and vines thriving again next spring, despite rising cost estimates for removing decades' worth of sediment. Without dredging, Columbia's man-made lakes would eventually fill in with sediment and plants, reverting over decades to the stream valleys they once were. The two largest, 37-acre Elkhorn, and 27-acre Lake Kittamaqundi, have never been completely dredged.

After 25 years working often literally in Maryland's trenches trying to help restore waterways that feed into the Chesapeake Bay, 53-year-old John L. McCoy came back to Columbia for a very special job. "I've come home," said the beefy, crew-cut and mustached new Columbia Association watershed manager. Five years short of a full state pension, McCoy, of Clarksville, resigned his Department of Natural Resources job to return to Columbia, where he had worked part-time for CA as a college student.

The Chesapeake Bay's blue crab population has bounced back from dangerously low levels, Maryland officials announced Wednesday, reporting that a newly completed survey of the crustaceans counted more than have been seen in more than a decade. A jubilant Gov. Martin O'Malley heralded the news from the waterfront deck of a seafood restaurant here, saying the winter crab survey justified the steps he and his counterpart in Virginia took two years ago to clamp down on the commercial catch.

People who enjoy walking along the paved footpath around Columbia's Lake Elkhorn will find their route blocked as dredging has resumed and the footbridge at the lake's far end is to be removed for about two months. Other portions of the path might also be blocked temporarily as the months of work continue, according to the Columbia Association, which owns the lake. The $5.2 million project began last fall but was delayed by winter, because freezing temperatures interfere with removing water from the dredged sediment.

After more than two months of preparations to dredge Columbia's Lake Elkhorn, the project was shut down for the winter before any sediment was drawn from the lake. According to a Columbia Association announcement, the freezing temperatures made it impossible to use equipment designed to extract the water from the silt. Work stopped just before Christmas and is expected to resume around mid-March. Currently, the lake is frozen over. The Columbia Association is also awaiting a waiver approval from the Maryland Department of the Environment that is required before dredging can begin, a spokeswoman said.