Surveys of the known flood siltation areas of the channel at Newcastle started yesterday with the Horseshoe area and the Kooragang Swing Basin complete. Surveys of other areas of the channel will continue throughout this week.
The Harbor Master has promulgated the Horseshoe Area at 14,6m. At this point the other areas surveyed were no higher than 15,0m. They will continue to monitor these areas as the flood siltation continuous to proceed down the river. It is expected that this will take some weeks.
The dredger has been working on the Horseshoe since last Wednesday and was joined yesterday with the deployment of the sweep bar.
The current plan is to progressively graduate the Horseshoe area back to 15,0m similar to the other areas of the channel with the goal of an intermediate step to 14.8m by the end of the week. This will allow a progressive increase to loading capacity of larger deep draft vessels.
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