Whakatāne harbour is in danger of losing the 18 moorings at Whakatāne Yacht Club if the district council doesn’t do its part to dredge the channel leading to the club’s marina.

Boats are grounding at each low tide and club captain Jamie Brunsden told the Beacon his boat, One Love, could now be taken out of the marina only two hours either side of high tide because of silt build up.

“We’ve had quite a few members move their boats to Tauranga because of this issue,” he said.

At low tide yesterday morning, his boat, alongside others moored at the marina, pictured, was sitting several centimetres higher in the water, but he said during extra-low tides the water could be 400mm to 600mm lower.

The club usually dredges silt from around its marina poles about every four years, paid for out of berth holders’ maintenance fees, but is currently unable to do so because the barge they hire to do this cannot access the site.

The marina was last dredged in May 2020.

Club members will be presenting a submission to a Whakatāne District Council meeting tomorrow requesting the council dredge a 200-metre length of navigable channel between Otuawhaki (Green Wharf) and the club.

According to the club’s submission, a dredging operation scheduled for November last year had to be cancelled because there was insufficient depth in the adjacent navigation channel for

the dredging plant to access the facility.

The club said the marina was built in 1997 based on assurances that channel access would be maintained.

The council had carried out dredging of the channel over the past 20 years and since 2011, the council and club had paid one contractor to carry out the work concurrently whenever possible, resulting in considerable cost savings to both.

The yacht club did not hold resource consent for navigational dredging, but the council did.

Mr Brunsden said the Whakatāne Harbour Fund was intended to cover costs of keeping the harbour navigable.

“We should use the Harbour Fund for harbour expenses,” he said.