Berkeley County to improve waterway access at Bushy Park Boat Landing

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – Berkeley County is expected to begin dredging work at the Bushy Park Boat Landing to improve the waterway access.

The landing has not been dredged in decades and it can often be hard to bring your boat in or take it out during low tides.

“Many people would choose to do something else because it was just frustrating,” said Berkeley County Supervisor Johnny Cribb of issues at the landing.

The Busy Park Boat Landing is the only saltwater landing in the county. The boat dock essentially sits on the sand during low tide; in fact, you could see birds standing about knee-high even way out in the water surrounding the landing.

The county is expected to dredge about 200 feet wide and they are going to go deep enough so that there will be about eight feet of water at low tide.

Supervisor Cribb said the work is a long time coming… but it was not an easy problem to solve.

“Employment-wise, it means a lot to me because at some point my phone will quit ringing off the hook and I’d like to quit getting beat up about this project. I wish the public knew how hard work we’ve worked on this. It has never gone on the back burner,” he said.

It took a while for the county to find a cost-effective solution. They had estimates of up to $12 million to have the work done and the materials removed.

“We have pursued every potential possibility,” said Cribb. “We’ve gone down every rabbit hole.”

$1.6 million was set aside from the 2014 sales tax referendum for the work. They expected matching federal or state money, but that never happened. So, they included it in the 2020 referendum as well. They now have the approximately $4.5 million needed to have the work completed.

The sand and silt will be piped to a location 10 miles away.

“I know that the public is really anticipating this and they’re really going to appreciate it,” he said.

Supervisor Cribb tells News 2 they expect the work to begin in November, and it should take about 28 days. He’s hoping the work could be completed by the new year.