The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, announces the Tampa Harbor Maintenance Dredging contract award of $3.6 million to Coastal Dredging Company, Inc., of Hammond, Louisiana.
The Corps awarded the contract September 22 and they anticipate that the construction will start in November and finish within six months.
The work consists of maintenance dredging shoal material from two channels to return them to their authorized depths. It includes dredging the Alafia River channel and turning basin to 32 feet, and the Manatee Harbor entrance channel and turning basin to 40 feet.
“Managing sediment on a regional scale results in significant cost savings and environmental benefits, so we combined the two authorized projects,” Project Manager, Brandon Burch, said.
The accumulation of sediment, commonly called shoaling, restricts navigation by reducing both channel width and depth. Minimum depths recorded from the channels are less than the authorized depths and are causing navigation restrictions for commercial vessels. Periodic dredging maintains the channels at their federally authorized depths for navigation purposes, said USACE.
The maintenance will remove roughly 200,000 cubic yards of material in total.
Coastal Dredging Company will place all material from the Alafia River dredging in a permitted disposal area located in Tampa Bay. They plan to dredge material from Manatee Harbor and place it in a designated upland disposal area. Contract work also includes turbidity monitoring, endangered species monitoring, and more.