Dredging begins on channel in New York Harbor

Dredging begins on channel in New York Harbor A project to deepen the Port Jersey Channel to marine terminals in Bayonne and Jersey City to 50 feet began last week, said New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri.
   The $200 million project is being funded by the NJDOT, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
   Kolluri said the project “will serve as a regional economic engine by improving the accessibility of the Port Jersey Channel for large ships.” It also seeks to improve safety by realigning the channel.
   The project, which will take the channel to 50 feet, from 41 feet, will require removal of more than 3.6 million cubic yards of sand, silt and glacial till sediments, all of which will be beneficially used. Almost a million cubic yards will be used to create fish habitat in a defunct navigation channel on the south side of the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor. Another 750,000 cubic yards of silt will be blended with Portland cement and used to cap landfills and brownfields in New Jersey and New York. About 500,000 cubic yards of clean sand will be used to fill low lying areas on the Peninsula at Bayonne, preparing them for development. The remaining clean sediments will be used to cap the former ocean disposal site off of Sandy Hook.
   The Port Jersey Channel provides access to Global Marine Terminals, the Northeast Auto Marine Terminal, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Cape Liberty Cruise Terminal. It will also provide access to a new roll-on/roll-off terminal planned for the former Military Ocean Terminal Bayonne. Ports America recently purchased the land to build the terminal from the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Agency, but the port authority is challenging that sale because the Bayonne agency had arranged a sale to it.
   The dredging project is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2009.
   The channel could play an increasingly important role in the port’s future because container terminals along it are located outside channels leading beneath the Bayonne Bridge, an obstacle to very large container ships. ' Chris Dupin