The New England District team and its contractor, Cashman Dredging and Marine Contracting Company, LLC of Quincy, Massachusetts, completed dredging a portion of the Housatonic River Federal Channel in Connecticut two months ahead of schedule. The project, originally estimated to cost $9.3 million, came in under budget. The state of Connecticut is the project sponsor.
“The project was finished in December,” said Project Manager Erika Mark. “Our dredge window was October 1 through March 31, so that is the time frame the contractor had to get the work done. They began dredging in mid-October and finished in December so there was plenty of time to spare.”
A total of 273,881 cubic yards of clean, fine grain sand was dredged from the channel. As an added benefit, 228,064 cubic yards of that material was placed onto Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison, Connecticut to nourish the eroding beach, located 33 miles from the dredge site.
Besides project manager Erika Mark, other team members that contributed to the success of this project were retired Project Manager Jack Karalius, Valerie Cappola, Fred Pike, Ray Goff, Megan Cullen, Jeff Preston and Jeff Gaeta.
New England District Team members are familiar with the Housatonic River with the first project occurring in 1871. Since then, the District has made several improvements to facilitate navigation for commercial and recreational vessels.