MOSES LAKE - Residents can expect to see the Moses Lake Irrigation and Rehabilitation District's hydraulic dredge floating in the lake for the next few months.

MLIRD officials said they will keep the dredge in the water until operations can pick back up in July, instead of removing it, because it will save the district an estimated $24,000.

MLIRD staff began operating the dredge on March 1, but had to stop at the end of the month. Permits only allow dredging during the month of March and from July 1 to November 30, according to officials.

Board chair Ken Kernan said it made sense financially to leave the dredge in the lake rather than take it out at the end of March and put it back in three months later.

MLIRD has to use a crane each time the dredge is either put in or removed from the lake, he said. "It costs a little over $12,000 to lift it in or lift it out with the crane," he said Thursday. "It didn't make sense to us to spend that, so we're going to let it float."

Chris Wilson, the district's lead maintenance technician, told directors the dredge ran smoothly in March. He gave an update on the dredge project during a board meeting Tuesday night.

He said the dredge was able to remove sediment from an average depth of ten feet.

"We didn't have too many problems out there," he said.

Director Ron Covey said he is happy with the dredge's performance so far. "After being out there and seeing the dredge function it appears to be working about three times better than last year," he said after the meeting.

Covey said sediment fills the pond in about one-third of the time it took to fill it previously.

"There is a great deal more sediment coming in than before," he said. "I'm very happy with the functioning of it since we had it rebuilt."

About $69,000 in repairs and modifications were made on the dredge, according to a previous Columbia Basin Herald article.