SOUTH COAST: The Port of Coos Bay has stepped up its public outreach efforts in recent weeks to promote its proposed $400 million channel modification project. “This city, this bay was built on shipping. It’s a valuable resource,” Mike Dunning, the Port’s director of maritime operations, told Coos Bay city councilors Tuesday night. “One of the important numbers to think about is 1986: we had almost 400 vessel calls a year, (now) we are down to 50.”
The project would involve dredging the current channel and deepening it 8 feet along more than 8 miles of river, beginning near Roseburg Forest Products. The same stretch west of the McCullough Bridge would likewise be widened 150 feet. A 1,400 foot long by 1,100 foot wide “vessel-turning basin” would also be created at the upper end of the proposed modification. Currently, the channel sits at a depth of 37 feet with a width of 300 feet. Those numbers would change to 45-feet deep by 450-feet wide at the project’s conclusion. If completed, the work would be the largest and deepest dredging project in Coos Bay’s history.
