Braddock Bay seems like the perfect area to have a house in Monroe County, but this lovely lakeside bay has a flaw. There is a sandbar in Braddock Bay which prevents many boaters from entering Lake Ontario.

“It certainly doesn't help your property values. People want to buy a place on the water where they can get access to Lake Ontario,” says Craig Bryce, owner of Bryce Marina in Greece and a 30 year resident of Salmon Creek in Braddock Bay, “the frustration is that nobody really seems to take this issue to heart and try to see it through.”

The Town of Greece stopped covering the cost of dredging nearly a decade ago. Since then, the channel has filled in with silt, blocking larger boats from passing through to the lake.

“I don't think that the channel really needs to be justified every year, it needs a dredging and spot maintenance for the sandbar,” says Steve Gibbs, owner of Gibbs Marine Group. Gibbs operates the Braddock Bay Marina for public use in Greece. “I've been here since 1992 and the Town came to me and asked me to run the marina for them in 1997 first as an employee but to preserve the operation.”

In a couple of weeks, the Braddock Bay launch pad will be filled with boats. Unfortunately, there will not be as many boats as in years past. Because of the dredging issue and lack of access to Lake Ontario, 70% of the boats that used to dock here no longer do.

“So, we've gone from 270 boats to maybe 30 or 50,” says Gibbs, “it's extremely frustrating, we've lost five jobs here the business operates at a loss.”

Gibbs actually owns a dredger that would work on Braddock Bay but there's no money for the project.

“We really need the funding to conduct the dredging operations,” says Gibbs.

Greece's town supervisor, John Auberger, says the money will not be coming from the town.

“We, the Town of Greece, are essentially out of any type of dredging business,” says Auberger, “having a local municipality in the business of dredging of a federal or state waterway is not the way to go.”

Instead, Auberger wants to see federal assistance pay for the dredging. There have been talks with democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaugther and republican Senator Joe Robach but to date no money for the Town has been put aside.

“The real main issue is similar to the Lake and what we have on Irondequoit Bay we need to have some federal assistance to either shore up and prevent that type of sediment from coming back,” says Auberger.

Gibbs is trying to secure grant funding for the dredging project through Senator Robach and is planning on another meeting with the Town of Greece to discuss the issue. In the meantime, Gibbs is preparing for what could be another lean year at Braddock Bay.  

“It's hard to put 10 years into something and get to the point where it's hard to maintain it.”