Who Keeps the Intracoastal at Depth: FIND and the Army Corps Maintain the Federal Channels

The Florida Inland Navigation District is an independent special taxing district created by the Florida Legislature under Part IV of Chapter 374, Florida Statutes. It serves as the local sponsor of the federally authorized Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway in Florida, and it also sponsors stretches of the Okeechobee Waterway along the east coast.

In that role, FIND works with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District to maintain the federally authorized depths of the channels, provides the lands and dredged material management areas the work needs, and administers a waterways assistance program. Its office sits on the Intracoastal in Jupiter, in northern Palm Beach County.

The federal channels carry authorized depths set decades ago. For years, some Palm Beach County reaches were not maintained at all; a 2019 project restored a 4.5-mile section from the Port of Palm Beach to the Town of Palm Beach docks to its authorized depth of 10 feet below mean lower low water for the first time since original construction.

In Broward, the Intracoastal through Fort Lauderdale was deepened from roughly 10 feet to a navigable depth of 15 feet in a project completed in 2017, with the dredged material placed at a management area at Port Everglades. Sediment keeps moving into all of these channels, so the work is recurring rather than one-time.

Routine maintenance dredging does not go through project-by-project permitting every time. In January 2024, the Army Corps reissued Regional General Permit RGP-93, which authorizes FIND's recurring maintenance dredging of the Atlantic Intracoastal, Intracoastal, and Okeechobee Waterways along Florida's east coast through January 30, 2029.

The permit covers the channels FIND sponsors, including the reaches boaters use in Palm Beach and Broward counties. Public notices published by the Jacksonville District list the covered reaches and the conditions the work must meet, and those notices are updated when conditions change.

The maintained federal channel is the reference point for depth along the Intracoastal, but it does not cover the private canals and slips that most owners use every day. Those waterways are on the owner's maintenance clock, and their depth is whatever the community or owner has established with their own dredging program.

When FIND or a contractor works near your waterway, you may see turbid water, equipment, or temporarily restricted areas during a dredging campaign. That is normal maintenance activity. The useful habit for owners is to expect channel work within the federal permit cycle and to keep their own private waterway on a separate, planned schedule.

A qualified crew can measure your water depth at mean low tide in a free site consultation and show you where the wall, the dock, and the bottom stand today, including whether toe scour or sediment has reached the point of planning maintenance work.

To request free resources about dredging, call (561) 299-1323 or email slselleck@gmail.com. Tell us about your dock, slip, or waterway and we will help you understand what it needs.