As part of the operations and maintenance of the Mississippi River federal navigation channel, the Corps of Engineers recently completed the dredging of the Head of Passes Hopper Dredge Disposal Area (HDDA) and beneficially used all the dredged material to build wetlands in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Delta National Wildlife Refuge.
Over 600 acres of wetlands were added to the existing 1,653 acres in the refuge which the Corps has built from previous HDDA O&M dredging cycles.
Weeks Marine began dredging the HDDA in September 2012 and removed over 8 million cubic yards of material from the disposal site. This material was pumped over 13,000 yards to build a marsh platform at an elevation of +7 feet in Delta National Wildlife Refuge, north of Pass a Loutre. The dredged material placement sites and marsh platform elevations had been determined in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Since this beneficial use of dredged material is related to O&M responsibilities for the federal navigation channel, the project was 100 percent federally-funded. The Corps has been strategically placing dredged material in the refuge since the late 1990s, and the wetlands that have been created through these restoration efforts provide vital habitat for many fish and wildlife species, specifically wintering waterfowl that live here.
Delta National Wildlife Refuge is located within the Mississippi River Bird’s Foot Delta, 10 miles south of Venice, LA, and encompasses 48,000 acres.
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Press Release, March 25, 2013