The Stratford Waterfront and Harbor Management Commission in coordination with the US Army Corps of Engineers announces that the Housatonic River is being dredged.
The last time Connecticuts second longest river was dredged was in 1976.
Leading the efforts to dredge the Housatonic River to improve safe navigation and promote economic development while at the same time protecting the environment, has been a major priority of the Stratford Waterfront and Harbor Management Commission, says chairman Bill Rock.
For the past 13 years the Stratford Waterfront Commission has been coordinating the efforts of the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department of Transportation, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection as well as local, state and federal officials, other related commissions and agencies, to move this project foreword.
Dredging will clear much of the sand washed down from up river, filling in some parts of the federal channel to depths as shallow as 2 or three feet from a previously dredged depth of 18 feet at low tide. This has created a menace to navigation.
Some 50,000 cubic yards of extensively tested clean sand will be dredged from specific areas located between the RT1 Devon Bridge to the mouth of the river and disposed in Long Island sound. The projects cost is seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars which was obtained through state bonding by the Department of Transportation.
Funding for testing was obtained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which owns the Currituck, the vessel that will be used to dredge the river. The sand will be vacuumed from the channel then placed in the Curritucks hold and transported to the disposal site off shore of Long Beach to aid in protection for the beach from erosion.
Rigorous testing was conducted to obtain permits from the department of energy and environmental protection for this project.
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Press Release, November 14, 2012