VENICE

Snake Island to close Monday to boaters as dredging project begins

Earle Kimel
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Snake Island will close for 75 days, starting Monday, so the West Coast Inland Navigation District can dredge Lyons Bay and place sand and rock on the island at the end of Venice Inlet, which is a haven for area boaters. The project timeline would have boaters seeking other shores until it reopens in December. Since the island will be a construction site, trespassing is a third-degree felony.

VENICE – West Coast Inland Navigation District will close Snake Island on Monday in connection with a dredging project in Lyons Bay that likely will keep the popular boating destination closed for more than two months.

“We installed signs and buoys yesterday, but the signs are covered up,” Justin McBride, executive director of the West Coast Inland Navigation District, said Friday morning.

He added that this weekend will be used as an educational period, but the island will close and the contractor will start working on the 75-day project Monday.

WCIND, which owns Snake Island, is overseeing the maintenance dredging of Lyons Bay, along with the reinforcement of rock barriers that were placed on the island as part of a $350,000 restoration project in 2014.

In addition to being popular with boaters, Snake Island shields the Intracoastal Waterway from sand brought in by the tides of Venice Inlet.

About 7,000 cubic yards of material will be dredged from the main channel and rim channel in Lyons Bay and deposited on the west side of Snake Island.

The rock barriers also will be extended to further protect the shore.

Barges taking the material from Lyons Bay to Snake Island may impede some boat traffic.

The cost for both projects is about $389,000 – $70,000 for Snake Island and $319,000 for the dredging.

Snake Island is a construction site for the duration of the project, which means trespassing on the island during that time period is a third-degree felony.

The shores should reopen sometime in December.