Walter said cost estimates for the project, previously estimated at more than $6 million, have been lowered and that the city has enough money to get the job done. City officials have already spent about $600,000 of that money on engineering studies needed to apply for permits from county regulators. The new plan calls for dredging a 20-feet-wide by 3- to 5-feet-deep channel on a dozen canals in the West Shore area and a small portion of one canal on Davis Islands.įunding for the dredging will come from a $1.3-million federal grant and $1 million in matching funds from the city. The city plans to submit the required paperwork and applicationsfor dredging permits to Hillsborough County’s Environmental Protection Commissionbefore the holiday break and is expected to put the project out to bid sometime next year, said Chuck Walter, director of the stormwater department, who will oversee the dredging project. Since then, though, city officials have scrapped those plans and decided to move ahead with the project without taxing homeowners, with the help of federal funds. TAMPA – A thick bed of foul-smelling muck blankets the bottom of a dozen canalsalong Old Tampa Bay, caused by decades of stormwater runoff and over development.Ĭity officialsand residents have wrangled for years over whose responsibility it is to clean up the canals, many of them carved into the coastline by developers in the early 1960s after the West Shore area was annexed into the city from Hillsborough County.Īt one point, Tampa planned to tax residents who live along the canals at least $8,000 per household to pay for a dredging project – a proposal that drew fierce opposition from West Shore property owners who argued that the city should foot the bill for the work. Now waterfront communities in Beach Park, Sunset Park and Davis Islands will benefit, making canals navigable in these desirable communities. Boating Communities in South Tampa get approval for Canal Dredging – Tampa Tribune -The original plan was to asses the residence a minimum of 8K, now the City of Tampa will move ahead with the project without taxing homeowners, with the help of federal funds.
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