GARRISON - Dirt is hardly a dirty word to Kurt Martin, who owns Martin Construction of Gladstone.

To him, dirt is a job.

His company is building North Dakota's newest marina at Fort Stevenson State Park near Garrison. The project involves moving 500,000 cubic yards, enough dirt to bury a small town.

The marina project comes with a $10 million tab that will be picked up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Dirt work started March 12. In just these two months, the marina - essentially a six-acre bowl carved down to 1,790 feet elevation with a wide opening to a protected deepwater bay - is already recognizable.

The shape of things to come is there, not only in the dirt, but out on the blue water, too.

Martin said the marina may seem like a lot of dirt work - and it is - but it's only one-fourth the dirt his company moved to build Harmon Lake near Mandan last year.

"It's just something in front of you that you go out and tackle," he said.

And then there's the mother of all tackles.

For history's sake, it's worth noting that the corps' moved 80,000 cubic yards of dirt daily in 1 million truckloads over two years' time to build the dam that holds back the lake.

This marina is a mere blip on that scale.

By any other measure, it's much more.

The value of the marina probably equals all that was spent to develop Fort Stevenson State Park, said superintendent Dick Messerly.

It also means the park, after a long dry spell, will be back in the marina business.

The former marina that was dredged there in 1983 went completely dry in 2001. Trees grow there now.

It's far too shallow by the present operating standard of the lake, which has steadily been drawn down by Mother Nature and the corps for years, now.

Though the lake is low, at 1,805 feet elevation now, there's still a vast amount of lake surface.

A marina means watercraft that are too big to trailer around can tie off somewhere. It also offers safety in a storm, if boaters need a place out of the wind and waves that can come up quickly on the big lake.

The project includes a concession, a new extended ramp that opened Tuesday and parking for 200 rigs and boat trailers.

The marina will have room for 70 slips and more, if there's demand.

Scott Samuelson, who's managing the project for Martin Construction, said the dirt work was about 30 percent done last week, after just 31 working days.

It'll take longer than the dirt to move 50,000 tons of rock stored nearby.

The rock for rip rapping was gathered this winter over frozen roads from farmers' fields all around.

Using local rock instead of quarried Minnesota granite, like the corps' engineers preferred, saved $3 million, Messerly said.

That savings made a few other options like the concession, the floating docks, possible.

However, it isn't available for the extra fuel costs that go with operating equipment at the present price of diesel fuel.

Martin said he'll use about 150,000 gallons on the marina job. Because the federal government doesn't allow a fuel clause in their contracts, it's money that'll have to come off his bottom line, mitigated by any equipment efficiencies he can work in.

The marina should be completed Sept. 19, just in time for … winter, unfortunately, for folks itching to conveniently park their boat on the north shore of Lake Sakakawea.

It'll be a grand opening when it opens to the public a year from now, says Messerly.

"A lot of people think we're less developed in this state than a lot of states, but this marina is comparable to the best you'll find anywhere," he said.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@westriv.com.)