The New Zealand’s Waitaki District Council has confirmed that the dredging operations at Oamaru Harbor are set to start today or tomorrow.
Under the project, Rooney Earth Moving will be dredging a 120 meter long by 40 meter wide portion of the Oamaru Harbor channel to a depth of three meters at low tide (at present its down to about 1 meter at low tide), 7,000 cubic meters of dredging material is proposed to be removed from the channel.
The heavy machinery involved in the dredging project will consist of a 40 tonne long reach excavator, 30 tonne excavator and 35 tonne dump truck.
The dredged material will be used to establish a temporary causeway along the harbor side of the break water in order to provide access to carry out repairs and rock armoring on the sea side of the break water.
It is expected there will be truck and trailer movements bringing rock for armoring the breakwater and this may cause some restriction to public access at certain times, the council said.
Waitaki District Council Projects and Assets Officer, Grant Rhodes, said that he was looking forward getting the channel dredged to a safe state and progressing work on the breakwater structure which is a Category One heritage structure.