The Western Dredging Associations (WEDA) during its annual conference in Vancouver has presented Environmental Excellence Awards in three categories: Environmental Dredging, Navigation Dredging, and Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change.
The 2017 WEDA Environmental Excellence Award for Environmental Dredging was presented to the project team for Onondaga Lake Restoration in Syracuse, New York, USA.
Project team members are Honeywell International; Parsons Corporation; Anchor QEA, LLC; O’Brien & Gere; Geosyntec Consultants; Sevenson Environmental Services; Infrastructure Alternatives, Inc.; de Maximis, Inc.; and Brown & Sanford Consultants.
The Onondaga Lake project is one of the largest restoration projects in North America.
The multi-year project was conceived by some premier experts from academia, industry and the public, and involved several decades of planning, investigations, engineering and construction, before coming to fruition.
Some 2.2 million cubic yards (MCY) of dredged material were removed from the lake bottom and pumped over 4 miles to an upland sediment consolidation area (SCA).
The material was then placed within 979 geotextile tubes, stacked up to 5 layers high, over the 55-acre SCA. Approximately 475 acres of cap was then placed over the lake bottom including placement of 1.6 MCY hydraulically, and another 1.5 MCY mechanically.
Specialized amendments (over 14 million pounds of granular activated carbon, and 14,000 tons of siderite) were incorporated into the cap layers to provide additional sorption and retardation properties.
Approximately 37 acres of the lake bottom received targeted habitat restoration materials and planting.
These innovations resulted in technological advancements that were once thought to be unattainable, said Sevenson in its announcement.