The Maryland Department of Transportation’s Port Administration will provide an update on the expansion of the Cox Creek Dredged Material Containment Facility at the Public Information Meeting set for Thursday, April 6, 2017.
Two days after the meeting, on Saturday, April 8, the department will be offering public tours of the Cox Creek facility, demolition area, and Swan Creek mitigation wetland.
The Cox Creek facility is located just south of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, on the western shore of the Patapsco River in the upper Chesapeake Bay. The annual capacity of the DMCF is approximately 500,000 which is a third of the average amount of maintenance dredged material to be removed from the Baltimore Harbor shipping channels.
Cox Creek, constructed in the 1960s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has a total projected capacity of 6 million cubic yards.
To compensate for the construction of 4.87 acres of armor stone around the dikes at the Cox Creek Dredged Material Containment Facility (DMCF), 11.3 acres of tidal wetland was created downstream of the Swan Creek Watershed. The Swan Creek Mitigation Wetland consists of 3.59 acres of open water, 3.92 acres of low marsh, 2.81 acres of high marsh and 0.81 acres of saltbush assemblages.