{"id":84511,"date":"2025-12-15T23:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T23:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/84511\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T23:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T23:00:12","slug":"st-pete-studies-to-dredge-shallow-canals-in-riviera-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/84511\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete studies to dredge shallow canals in Riviera Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The City Of St. Petersburg says a stormwater study is a direct result of summer walking tours held weeks ago.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What You Need To Know<\/p>\n<p>St. Pete&#8217;s public works department wanted to hear directly from residents about the flooding problems in their neighborhood<\/p>\n<p>Riviera Bay residents say all their canals are full of sand and sediment<\/p>\n<p>Its public works department wanted to hear directly from residents about the flooding problems in their neighborhood.<\/p>\n<p>The city now says it will conduct a study to dredge the shallow canals in Riviera Bay. It&#8217;s taking a phased approach to the flooding solutions in what public works calls a massive undertaking.<\/p>\n<p>Riviera Bay residents say all their canals are full of sand and sediment.<\/p>\n<p>A homeowner who lives where two of the canals meet is dealing with the issue.<\/p>\n<p>Kathy Crow says Hurricane Helene\u2019s storm surge pushed a lot of sand and sediment into the canal behind her home last year.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1215_bn9_rivera_bay_sand_2.jpeg\" alt=\"Public works says the Riviera Bay canal problem is now on its radar thanks to the Resilient St. Pete Action Plan. (Spectrum News\/Josh Rojas)\" class=\"hashed-image image\" img-data-alignment=\"center\" img-data-width=\"percent-hundred\" loading=\"lazy\" img-data-caption=\"Public works says the Riviera Bay canal problem is now on its radar thanks to the Resilient St. Pete Action Plan. (Spectrum News\/Josh Rojas)\" img-data-wrap-text=\"true\" img-data-editing=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Public works says the Riviera Bay canal problem is now on its radar thanks to the Resilient St. Pete Action Plan. (Spectrum News\/Josh Rojas)<\/p>\n<p>New land has formed where there should be a few feet of water. It is rendering her boat useless.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are no longer on navigable waterfront,&#8221; Crow said. &#8220;We are barely on a drainage canal because I don&#8217;t even think it could drain water properly during a storm event.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Riviera Bay canals are part of St. Pete&#8217;s stormwater conveyance system.<\/p>\n<p>Runoff from the Saltgrass Lake area drains into the canals.<\/p>\n<p>Crow says that because those canals are so full of sediment, homes are now being threatened during regular summer storms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf all that water is going to be diverted down this canal system, there is nowhere for the water to go,&#8221; Crow said. &#8220;So now that there&#8217;s no depth, it&#8217;s going to come up and it&#8217;s going to flood our properties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Public works says the Riviera Bay canal problem is now on its radar thanks to the <a href=\"https:\/\/storymaps.arcgis.com\/collections\/5aa9f1fab1784f599cf808ef0a641fca\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Resilient St. Pete Action Plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1215_bn9_rivera_bay_sand_3.jpeg\" alt=\"The public works administrator says that the dredge study is a direct result of walking tours earlier this year. (Spectrum News\/Josh Rojas)\" class=\"hashed-image image\" img-data-alignment=\"center\" img-data-width=\"percent-hundred\" loading=\"lazy\" img-data-caption=\"The public works administrator says that the dredge study is a direct result of walking tours earlier this year. (Spectrum News\/Josh Rojas)\" img-data-wrap-text=\"true\" img-data-editing=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The public works administrator says that the dredge study is a direct result of walking tours earlier this year. (Spectrum News\/Josh Rojas)<\/p>\n<p>Spectrum News reported earlier this year how public works, along with consultant engineers, conducted walking tours in nine different neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p>The city wanted to hear directly from residents about the flooding problems in their neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p>Riviera Bay Civic Association President Vanessa Pugliese says the city will now conduct a study to dredge the canals.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is going to give us the absolute data we need about the sedimentation and silt issues in these canals so that we can make sure that they&#8217;re actually dredged to appropriate depths to handle the increased stormwater runoff loads from the city.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The public works administrator says that the dredge study is a direct result of the walking tours.<\/p>\n<p>Crow participated in that walking tour and showed city leaders the problem in her backyard.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is nice to see something moving forward,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I appreciate that they are listening to us, and they took us seriously.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The city says it chose those nine neighborhoods for walking tours based on their unique relationship with the water and wants to avoid a one-size fits all solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The City Of St. Petersburg says a stormwater study is a direct result of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1011,274,1190,2968,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-84511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-top-stories","tag-human-interest","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}