Dredging in Tallassee
Slips, channels, and ponds priced off the published cost guide. Call (334) 610-0188 or send the form below.
Tallassee is a dam town twice over. Thurlow Dam sits in the middle of it and Yates Dam a few miles up, and the two small reservoirs they hold are run-of-river water, the Tallapoosa passing through rather than pooling. That distinction decides everything about sediment. Lake Martin upstream traps most of the river’s load in its big still basin, but what gets through, plus everything the local creeks add, settles in Yates and Thurlow where the river slows behind each dam.
Docks and slips on Yates in particular sit on some of the fastest-filling residential water we serve. The lake is narrow, the current carries load along the old river channel, and any slip dug outside that channel is a settling pond by design. We dredge these slips the same way we work Lake Martin, sealed suction lines to bank-staged dewatering tubes, and the published ranges hold: $2,500 to $6,000 for a single slip, more when an approach lane has silted across.
Alabama Power operates Yates and Thurlow just as it does Martin, so the shoreline permit process is the one we already run every week, paired with Corps Nationwide Permit 19 coverage for jobs under 25 cubic yards. Tallassee owners get the same filed-before-we-float guarantee as the big lake.
No drawdown means no digging season
Yates has no winter drawdown to speak of, unlike Lake Martin’s roughly 7 foot ease-down, so there is no season when the sediment sits exposed for cheap mechanical digging. Suction dredging is effectively the only practical way to restore a Yates slip, which is why our calendar there runs year round instead of clustering in winter.
Both reservoirs and the river through town
Around Tallassee the calls come from Yates Lake, Thurlow Lake, the Thurlow Dam tailrace, the old mill district, covering ZIP 36078. If your water is near those, odds are we have sounded a bottom within sight of it.
Quote a Yates or Thurlow slip
The address and what the water is doing get the fastest answer. Every number comes off the public table.
What Tallassee owners want to know
Why does my Yates Lake slip fill in faster than my neighbor’s place on Lake Martin?
Because Yates is run-of-river water. The Tallapoosa moves through it constantly and drops sediment wherever the current slows, and a dredged slip is exactly such a spot. Martin is a huge storage lake that settles its load across 44,000 acres; Yates concentrates its load along a narrow channel lined with docks.
Do the same permits apply on Yates and Thurlow as on Lake Martin?
Yes. All three are Alabama Power reservoirs, so shoreline approval goes through the same program, and the Corps of Engineers covers minor dredging under Nationwide Permit 19 up to 25 cubic yards. We prepare the filings for you before scheduling the dredge.
Can you dredge in the current below Thurlow Dam?
The tailrace itself is not workable water, but docks downstream on the calmer river reaches are. We assess those case by case with a depth check, since current, rock, and generation schedules all bear on whether suction work makes sense at a river dock.
Auburn Dredging works all the water between Auburn and the lakes. See the cost guide, the permit explainer, or nearby areas: Dadeville, Alexander City, Eclectic.