Tom’s Jobs |
Left: There’s a lot of hard work involved in building a dock. Below: From left, Shannon Miller and Tom Cotter talk discuss what’s involved with dredging
by Tom Cotter photography by Candy Howard
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Welcome
Mud Life
to
Dredging around the lake proves to be a dirty job
along at 2 to 3 knots. I soon realized that you can’t be in any hurry when you work in this business. Miller’s father, Rick, started the dredging operation in the late 1970s. Since taking over the business from his father in
the 1980s, Shannon has expanded to include the other waterfront services. “I’d go to work with my father when I was a little kid,” he says. “I can show you the exact first piece of rock I put down when I was 8 years old. And I’ve been 21
Lake Norman Currents | July 2011
rom a distance, it might appear that Shannon Miller has the best job in the world. He drives his boat to work every morning and wears shorts and flip-flops to sales meetings. How much better could it get? Unless you spend time with Miller, you wouldn’t know just how tough his job is. Miller is the owner of Lake Norman Dredging & Marine Construction, one of only a couple of licensed dredging and construction companies on Lake Norman. The company dredges, builds dock systems, installs pilings and provides lakeside excavation services after storms. They’ll even give you a sandy beach on the shore of your house, if that’s what you desire. I was invited by Miller to join his six-person crew recently — to experience what truly could be Lake Norman’s dirtiest job. Miller’s company is based on Slanting Bridge Road, next to the Lake Norman Motel, in Sherrills Ford. You may have passed the site and seen all the heavy equipment and piles of stone and lumber. This is where his company transfers tons of rock used to stabilize shorelines from dump trucks onto one of his four barges. While I was there, 80 tons of riprap rock was loaded onto the barge before it was towed by a tiny tugboat — which was actually built in Denver, North Carolina — to a location on the other side of the lake. “We’re going to bring it over to that point,” Miller says, pointing to a location probably a mile or two away. “It should take about an hour-and-a-half to get there.” This didn’t make sense to me; I could almost swim that distance in less time. But then, the John Deere-powered tug can only push the 160,000-pound barge