SEBRING — Last week when Clell Ford and Erin McCarta measured the width, length and depth of a dredge hole at City Pier Beach, where a drowning took place June 7, they realized it was a whole lot bigger than originally estimated. In fact, it's about 10 times bigger, and it's going to take twice as much sand to fill it as can be easily found in Lake Jackson: 10.000 cubic feet, 6,800 cubic yards. So the bottom line, said Ford, who is Highlands County's lakes manager, is that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection won't be able to grant an emergency permit to fill the football-field sized hole a few feet off the beach. ...more

June 18, 2008

I read Friday that City Pier Beach will be closed for at least a month to fill in the offshore dredge hole. The recent tragic drowning accident at this dredge hole has made this a notable priority. I never knew, and suspect many never knew of this hole. There is another 30-foot deep hole just south of the channel between Lake Jackson and Little Lake Jackson (on the Little Lake Jackson side.) ...more

June 16, 2008