Curtin Maritime has once again pushed the boundaries of performance with their latest dredging project on the East Coast.
The company was recently contracted by the NAVFAC Mid-Atlantic Branch to deepen the Pier 11 South basin using their workhorse clamshell dredge the DB Ironbound.
In general, the project consisted of new dredging of Pier 11 South Berth Expansion Area and maintenance dredging of the outer berths of Piers 5 North and 6 North.
At the time of award, the DB ironbound was docked at Curtin home base in Long Beach, CA, requiring her to make the long journey from West Coast to East Coast via the Panama Canal, a voyage totaling over 5,500 nautical miles.
The company’s tug Taurus was the perfect boat to make the tow. Powerful enough to handle the barge in open water over long durations and shallow draft enough to tend the barge on-site at the Navy base during dredging operations.
According to Curtin, the Pier 11 south dredge area consisted of approximately 135,000 cubic yards of new work to depths of 51ft and 55ft, with about half of that material categorized as POL (Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants) Contaminated. This material was not suitable for beneficial reuse or offshore disposal and had to be treated before it can be disposed an authorized upland facility.
The remaining 110,000 cubic yards of new work material at Pier 11 South, and maintenance material at piers 5 North and 6 North not deemed POL-contaminated was transported to the USACE controlled Craney Island where Curtin’s unloader hydraulicly pumped all the material from barge into an upland cell as beneficial reuse.
The Craney Island Dredged Material Management Area is a 2,500-acre confined dredged material disposal site about three nautical miles from the dredge area.