Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is finishing work on navigation aids in five major boating waters ahead of Memorial Day weekend.
DNREC officials say their main priority is restoring channel markers destroyed or knocked out of place during this winter's storms to make popular boating areas safe to navigate.
Marker projects like these are something that DNREC leaders say get bigger year after year.
Kathleen Bergin is Program Manager for Field Operations at DNREC’s Shoreline and Waterway Management section.
“We maintain over 200 individual markers over nine separate channels and that number is increasing every year. As the Coast Guard starts to deprecate where they are maintaining, the state has to pick them up- and those are what is known as a private aids to navigation” she said.
Bergin says areas are chosen through a pre-season survey, usually done in the spring, to get an idea of where channels and markers have moved.
That survey determined the Lower Indian River, Roy and Whites Creeks, Beach Cove, and “The Ditch” were all waterways that needed DNREC attention this year.
Additionally, DNREC said that Baker's Channel, a moderately used boat way ordinarily maintained by a non-profit, is currently unsafe to use- the partnership, which began in 2011, is no longer in force. They noted in a statement,
"More than half the markers are missing, and the remaining markers are off station and no longer accurately reflect navigable conditions."
DNREC will remove the remaining markers and will not replace them, siting current operational and staffing shortages making the job untenable. They also note that that waterway is not established as a formal state-maintained navigational channel.
Bergin says the nearby Massey’s Ditch is still maintained and recognized by DNREC, suggesting that boaters use that area instead to ensure their safety.
Work is expected to be complete as the Memorial Day weekend gets started today - and DNREC notes a sharp increase in boaters.
