DREDGING ROUNDUP NORTH AMERICA – November/December 2014

GUILFORD HARBOR CONNECTICUT

Coastline Consulting and Development LLC of Madison Connecticut was awarded a $2242197.50 contract by the New England Engineer District the first week of October for maintenance dredging of part of the Guilford Harbor in Guilford Connecticut. Dredging started around November 15 and will take about 10 weeks to complete.

“The dredging work will include the main federal navigation channel an anchorage located in the East River approximately 100 feet by 1500 feet and the 55-foot wide 800-foot long Sluice Creek Chanel which connects the Guilford marina to the main federal navigation channel” Project Manager Daniel Stenstream of the Corps’ Programs and Project Management Division in Concord Massachusetts said. “In addition to these areas the town of Guilford marina may also be dredged.”

About 60000 total cubic yards of material will be dredged from the main channel anchorage Sluice Creek and marina. A mechanical dredge using various types of clamshell buckets will remove material from the shoaled portions of the Guilford Harbor federal navigation channel and marina and place it in scows that will be towed to the Central Long Island Disposal Area in Long Island Sound for disposal of dredged material.

The authorized federal project includes a navigation channel six feet deep below mean lower low water and 100 feet wide extending about 6000 feet from the confluence of the East and Neck Rivers out into Guilford Harbor.

The environmental window when dredge work can be performed is October 1 to January 31.

JACKSON COUNTY MISSISSIPPI

J.E. Borries was awarded a $2.3 million contract on October 20 by the Jackson County Board of Supervisors to dredge key areas of Simmons Stark and Davis bayous in the Ocean Springs area in Mississippi.

The work is part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant to dredge material deposited by Hurricane Isaac several years ago.

The county provided a 20 percent match to get the money.

Another contractor recently finished the first stage of the dredging work in the eastern reach of Bayou Porteaux.

GROTON AND STONINGTON CONNECTICUT

Cashman Dredging and Marine Contracting Company LLC of Quincy Massachusetts was awarded a $5280242 New England Engineer Division contract for maintenance dredging of part of the Mystic River Federal Navigation Project in Groton and Stonington Connecticut. The state of Connecticut is funding the project. The contract was awarded on September 30. Construction is scheduled to start on or about November 3 and will take about five months to complete.

The Mystic River Federal Navigation Project in Groton and Stonington consists of a 15-foot channel 125 feet from the Sound up to the railroad bridge then 100 feet wide up to the U.S. Route 1 highway bridge; a 12-foot channel above the highway bridge to the upper wharves at the Seaport Museum; a nine-foot by 8.5 acre anchorage in the harbor north of Mason Island; and a nine-foot turning basin above the railroad bridge.

The 12-foot channel was last maintained in 1941. Dredging of the other project features was last accomplished with the improvement work completed in 1957.

Project Manager Jennifer Flanagan of the Corps’ Programs and Project Management Division in Concord Massachusetts said the work would entail removing about 250000 cubic yards of material.

A mechanical dredge will remove shoals from all areas of the FNP and the material will be placed in scows and transported to the New London Disposal Site or the Rhode Island Disposal Site for placement.

OAKWOOD BEACH NEW JERSEY

Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. won a $9.9 million contract from the Philadelphia District on September 18 for a coastal and storm damage reduction project at Oakwood Beach New Jersey. 

The joint effort between the Corps and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Projection will build a 50-foot wide berm.

The cost of construction will be shared between the federal government and the state on a 65/35 basis. Following the initial construction the project will be renourished periodically over a span of 50 years under the same spending formula. Thanks to a provision in the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 the state will be able to finance its portion of the initial construction over 30 years.

Work on the Oakwood Beach project is expected to commence some time after November 1 and must be completed by March 1 because of an environmental restriction after that time.

Sand for the project will come from a borrow area in the main channel of the Delaware River. This project is not connected with the deepening of the main channel however another Corps’ project.

The Oakwood project is nearly two miles in length and will entail an estimated quantity of 346000 cubic yards of sand.

The project was authorized more than a decade ago but did not receive funding until 2013 when Congress enacted Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013.

STOCKTON AND SACREMENTO CALIFORNIA

Ross Island Sand and Gravel of Portland Oregon which owns most of its namesake island in the Willamette River was chosen by the Sacramento Engineer District to conduct maintenance dredging on California’s Stockton and Sacramento Deep Water Channels.

The $24 million three-year contract was awarded in the third week of September.

RACINE COUNTY WISCONSIN

The Racine County Drainage District in Wisconsin received approval from the Department of Natural Resources to draw down the Rochester Dam beginning October 1 and to be complete by October 15 to facilitate the proposed dredging of Wind Lake and Goose Lake Branch Canals during the winter 2014-2015 season.

The water levels in the system from Rochester Dam to Waterford Dam and from Rochester Dam to Wind Lake Dam will be very low during this period.

It is anticipated that the impoundment will start to be refilled beginning February 15 depending on the status of the dredging project.

DARE COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA

Crews with Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company completed sand placement in early September on a project to protect a stretch of North Carolina beach locally known as the ‘SCurves’ north of Rodanthe on Hatteras Island in Dare County North Carolina. The placement was part of a $20.3 million project awarded by the Corps of Engineers in June; work began in July.

Crews placed about 1.7 million cubic yards of sand in the location. The Corps of Engineers will perform a final survey of the off-shore borrow source where sand was dredged from for the project.

This N.C. Department of Transportation project administered by the Corps of Engineers is designed to provide several years of protection before a long-term project is completed for this stretch of NC 12 in Dare County where storms including Hurricane Sandy resulted in severe beach erosion along the road.

The Federal Highway Administration approved Hurricane Sandy emergency relief funds to pay for this project.

In addition to this project NCDOT is also conducting feasibility studies for projects to protect NC 12 south of Rodanthe at identified “hot spots” on southern Hatteras Island and Ocracoke Island in Hyde County.

Feasibility studies are expected to be completed this fall.

KEANSBURG AND BRIGANTINE NEW JERSEY

The New Jersey Department of Transportation announced September 24 the awarding of contracts for dredging in the Waackaack Creek and Thorns Creek Channels in Keansburg Monmouth County and St. Georges Thorofare in Brigantine Atlantic County.

The $1.2 million state-funded Waackaack and Thorns Creeks Channels navigation maintenance project in Keansburg will remove about 31500 cubic yards of material. NJDOT’s contractor Tri-State Dredging Inc. is expected to begin work this summer on an adjacent Confined Disposal Facility with dredging anticipated to start shortly thereafter.

The $603000 state-funded St. Georges Thorofare project in Brigantine will remove approximately 40500 cubic yards of sediment which will be used for beach replenishment. NJDOT’s contractor Mobile Dredging & Pumping Company began work after Labor Day.

In March 2014 NJDOT announced the start of a multi-year multi-million dollar State Channel Dredging Program that is designed to return New Jersey’s waterways many of which were damaged by Superstorm Sandy to a state of good repair.

TOWER MINNESOTA

After a delay of seven years the small city of Tower Minnesota is re-starting a $1.4 million dollar harbor dredging project.

Tower is situated on the east side of Pike Bay part of Lake Vermilion which itself is located to the west of Lake Superior and is surrounded by Lake Superior National Forest in the state’s northwest corner. Both the Pike River and the East Two River which flows through Tower feed into the bay.

On October 29 city officials announced plans to transform the harbor into a marina. Workers have already begun mapping the bottom of East Two River using sonar technology. Dredging was set to begin in the beginning of November to clear the way for boat travel between Lake Vermilion and Tower.

A Tower official told IDR that dredging will be handled by Marine Tech of Duluth. The project could be completed in five years. Town officials are also working to build a 36-unit hotel with a pool and meeting room.

STONE HARBOR AND MIDDLE TOWNSHIP NEW JERSEY

The Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District has partnered with state and local organizations on a marsh restoration demonstration project along the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway near Stone Harbor and Middle Township New Jersey.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife the Nature Conservancy and the Wetlands Institute joined efforts in the past year on the initiative. The dredged material to restore marsh and create habitat on marshland owned and managed by the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife.

The dredging project is funded under the Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill through an existing Philadelphia District contract with Barnegat Bay Dredging Company.

The contractors began dredging the federal channel of the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterways on August 11 and had removed approximately 7000 cubic yards of fine-grain sand from a critical shoal in the waterway by the end of August.

When the project is complete partner organizations will provide monitoring and analysis of both ecological and economic benefits of the process.

In addition to restoring habitat the Corps will continue demonstration efforts and conduct thinlayer placement along marsh adjacent to the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway through early September. Thin-layer placement involves pumping several inches of clean fine-grained sediment onto the marsh providing a foundation for marsh grasses to take root. This method can be a sustainable solution when dredging small quantities of sediment.

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY FLORIDA

Cavache Inc. of Pompano Beach Florida was awarded a $6058675 Corps of Engineers maintenance dredging contract in September for the Intracoastal Waterway Indian River Reach 1 which includes Sebastian Inlet south to the Wabasso Causeway in the Indian River Lagoon Indian River County.

Cavache began mobilizing in October and the project is expected to last five months. It is funded in partnership with the Florida Inland Navigation District which contributed 70 percent of the cost and the Corps of Engineers which funded 30 percent.

Dredging within this reach of the IWW will also remove muck from the navigation channel Project Manager Shelley Trulock said. Muck is a combination of fine sand and decayed organic material that when stirred clouds the water and reduces sunlight.

Cavache will place the dredged material in Dredge Material Management Area IR2 located east of U.S. Highway 1 and west of the Intracoastal Waterway in Indian River County. The material is not suitable for beach placement.

ROCKAWAY BEACH NEW YORK

In September Weeks Marine crews resumed beach restoration work at Rockaway Beach part of the Corps of Engineers’ work to repair and restore the engineered beach.

Work was temporarily stopped this summer when as expected crews moving east reached nesting areas of the endangered piping plover around Beach 61st Street. The plovers have fledged and the no-construction environmental window ended at the beginning of September so crews resumed sand pumping operations through October.

Before the last installment dredges pumped roughly three million cubic yards of sand at Rockaway since Hurricane Sandy and in the final push placed an additional 500000 cubic yards to complete construction.

The repair and restore of Rockaway Beach is being completed through two contracts both awarded to Weeks Marine of Cranford New Jersey. The first contract completed in the fall of 2013 was a $10 million contract and involved the placement of roughly 600000 cubic yards of sand dredged from East Rockaway Inlet. The second contract which started this spring and finishing this fall is a $26.4 million contract that involves the placement of roughly 2.9 million cubic yards of sand.