The US Navy Homeporting Project provides
additional berthing and shore support facilities for nuclear powered
aircraft carriers. As part of that project, Coastal Dredging &
Marine used hydraulic dredging equipment to remove 280,000 cubic
yards of material and transport it four miles via pipeline to
an enhancement site. At the enhancement site, the dredge material
was deposited to create shallow sub-tidal and inter-tidal habitat.
The enhancement site was located adjacent to existing eelgrass
beds. These beds needed to be protected during material placement.
JNE assisted in development of discharge strategies to minimize
turbidity impacts. A special silt curtain was deployed around
the perimeter of the eelgrass bed. Additional silt curtains were
used to contain the dredge spoil and shape the enhancement site.
Dredging occurred on a twenty-four hour/seven days a week schedule,
with monitoring conducted daily by JNE at both the dredging and
discharge sites. A differential Global Positioning System was
used to establish turbidity monitoring locations. Resulting data
were transferred to Arc View GIS format
|
