Army Corps allocates funds for several waterway projects

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Fiscal Year 2017 Work Plan carves out more than $170 million in funding that will go toward several port deepening and construction projects across the country.    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has allocated funding towards several waterway projects across the country in its Fiscal Year 2017 Work Plan released Wednesday.
   The USACE work plan allocates $17.5 million towards the South Carolina Ports Authority’s (SCPA) Charleston Harbor Deepening Project.
   The South Carolina legislature appropriated $300 million for the Charleston Harbor Deepening Project in 2012. The project, construction of which is scheduled to begin this fall, will take the main channel in Charleston from 45 feet to 52 feet, with the entrance channel dredged to 54 feet, allowing neo-Panamax vessels of 14,000 TEUs or more to enter the port without tidal restrictions.
   Erin Dhand, manager, corporate communications and community affairs at SCPA, told American Shipper the project is expected to be completed in 2020, and at 52 feet, Charleston will have the deepest harbor on the U.S. East Coast.
   The FY 2017 work plan also allocates $17.5 million for the first phase of a project to deepen Jacksonville harbor from 40 feet to 47 feet. This is the first federal funding committed to the project, the Jacksonville Port Authority (Jaxport) said in a statement.
   The plan also dedicates $42.7 million for the Savannah Harbor expansion – $35.8 million to continue entrance channel dredging, $4 million to continue environmental monitoring, $1.9 million for construction management and $990,000 for engineering during construction. In addition, President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2018 Civil Works Budget of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allocates $50 million towards the Savannah harbor expansion.
   On the Gulf Coast, USACE’s FY 2017 work plan grants Tampa Harbor $9 million to initiate, complete and fiscally close out a project on the Big Bend Channel, and $5 million for navigation channels around Houston and Galveston.
   In the Northeast, the work plan allocates $62.4 million towards the Delaware River Main Channel project and $18.2 million to the Boston Harbor Deep Draft Navigational Improvements Project, which was authorized by Congress in the Water Resources Development Act of 2014.
   President Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget allocates $58 million towards the project, which will deepen Boston’s outer harbor to 51 feet and the reserved channel to 47 feet, Massport Port Director Lisa Wieland told American Shipper. This will enable the port to better handle the 8,500-TEU ships that already call Conley Container Terminal, and even larger ships that will call in the future, she explained.
   On the West Coast, Oakland Harbor has been granted $1.1 million in USACE’s FY 2017 work plan to complete and fiscally close out its own 50-foot deepening project.