The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District, has awarded a contract for $41,368,100.00 to Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company, LLC on January 31, 2013 for deepening the Arthur Kill Federal Channel to 50 feet.
The contract area for this project is along Newark Bay, New Jersey and the Arthur Kill, Borough of Staten Island, New York, N.Y.
The contract is cost-shared with The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The project includes drilling, blasting, dredging, and disposal of rock. The Army Corps anticipates that drilling and blasting work on this contract will not adversely affect the surrounding communities.
The Arthur Kill Channel deepening effort is part of a more extensive harbor-dredging project to create safe and efficient channels for a larger class of vessels that will be calling at the Port of New York and New Jersey.
The award of this contract enables safe navigation for the largest ships in the world and the project is a critical milestone in the development of a world-class harbor estuary in the Port.
” The Army Corps is committed to a timely completion of navigation improvements within the harbor, ” said Tom Shea, Project Manager . ”The Arthur Kill channel approaching the New York Container Terminal is now underway with work scheduled to be completed by 2014 .”
The deepening of the channels coincides with improvements to the Panama Canal. The Panamax ships will be able to accommodate 18 to 20 containers across, compared to the 13 and can be stacked nine containers high instead of six, as with today’s ships. The newer generation of ships will save transportation costs for goods coming from overseas, and are more environmentally friendly sporting more fuel-efficient engines while equipped with the latest technologies in air emission control systems.
The Port of New York and New Jersey is the largest port on the East Coast, providing over 269,900 direct and indirect jobs in port related activities. Through the Port’s four major container terminals waterborne cargo moves to all parts of the United States and throughout the world.
The overall Harbor Deepening Project involves deepening nearly 38 miles of shipping channels between New York and New Jersey to bring them to a safe depth of 50 feet. The 50 foot deepening project is scheduled for completion in 2014.
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Press Release, February 4, 2012