Mandeville will pay $385,000 to dredge the harbor at the end of Jackson Avenue and Lakeshore Drive.

The City Council awarded the contract Thursday night to Inland Marine Services out of Baton Rouge.

Meyer Engineering recommended awarding the contract at the Oct. 8 council meeting, but the item was tabled after Mayor Pro Tem Trilby Lenfant raised questions about why the dredging was going to cost so much more than it has in the past. In 2002, the city paid Great Southern Dredging $76,800 to dredge a 100-foot wide by 10-foot deep channel down the center of the harbor from the boat launch to Lake Pontchartrain.

This time, Meyer Engineering was proposing it would cost an estimated $423,000 to dredge the harbor. Lenfant, who had to leave Thursday’s meeting early and was not there for the final vote on the contract, wanted to know why the price jumped up so much in the last seven years.

David Dupre with Meyer Engineering compared the scopes of the two projects and reported before the council Thursday night.

Dupre said the biggest increase in price is due to the fact that more silt will be removed.

The harbor will still be dredged to the 10-foot depth, but the area has silted in one foot more this time than in 2002.

Meyer Engineering has also adjusted the scope of the work to move the channel slightly to the east and further away from an existing seawall.

Dupre said he felt dredging too close to that wall could cause the wall to fail in the future.

This means Inland Marine Services will be dredging in an area where the harbor has never been dredged, and therefore is more silt accumulated.

Public Works Director David DeGeneres said a channel will also be dredged at the end of Jackson Avenue leading from the small boat launch around the existing seawall and out into the lake.

This addition also attributed to an increase in cost.

This part of the project was included in a separate project, which is being funded with Long term Community Recovery Funds, but was pulled from that project and included in the harbor-dredging project.

DeGeneres said some of the increase is simply do to an increase in the cost to do business.

“The cost of fuel is up, and the labor cost have gone up,” he said.

Tom Quinlan, commodore of the Pontchartrain Yacht Club, said regardless of the cost, the harbor needs to be dredged.

“We have had a hard time navigating parts of the harbor particularly on the eastern side,” Quinlan said. “It is necessary and it is something that needs to be done.”

He said navigating the harbor is especially difficult for sailors visiting from out of town because they often run aground on the eastern side.