Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. LLC, Old Brook, Illinois, has been awarded a $26.4 million contract for the Baltimore Harbor maintenance dredging project.
According to the DOD, work will be performed in Baltimore, Maryland, with an estimated completion date of March 30, 2020.
The work is part of the regular maintenance of the multiple channels that go from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia all the way into Baltimore Harbor that require periodic dredging to ensure continued safe navigation for vessels going in and out of the Port of Baltimore.
Each year, the Maryland Department of Transportation Port Administration (MPA) and the Army Corps work together to maintain approximately 150 nautical miles of channels that run through the Chesapeake Bay, Patapsco Rive, and Baltimore Harbor.
On average, 4.7 million cubic yards of sediment must be dredged every year to maintain them.
The last dredging campaign – recently completed by Norfolk Dredging of Virginia – had a price tag of roughly $24.6 million and included removal of nearly 2.6 million cubic yards of material from the shipping channels.
During the works, the channels were dredged to a depth of 51 feet plus one to two feet of allowable overdepth.