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Bridgeport Harbor Navigation Project

Bridgeport HarborBridgeport Harbor, one of Connecticut’s principal commercial ports, lies at the mouth of the Pequonnock River in southeastern Bridgeport. The development of Bridgeport Harbor began in 1836 and has been modified several times. The harbor contains the following navigational features:

  • A main ship channel extending from Long Island Sound to the inner harbor. From Long Island Sound to Tongue Point, the channel is 35 feet deep and 400 feet wide. It widens to 600 feet at the northwest bend (opposite Cilco Terminal), then narrows to 300 feet at a point 800 feet before the Stratford Avenue bridge as it heads up the Pequonnock River. The deepening of this channel to 35 feet was completed in 1963.
  • Two breakwaters at the entrance to the main harbor. The easterly breakwater is 3,823 feet long, and the westerly breakwater has a length of 2,110 feet.
  • Two anchorage areas in the upper harbor. The first, 25 feet deep and 23 acres in area, lies opposite Tongue Point (A small portion of this anchorage was dredged to 33.5 feet to facilitate the movement of large commercial ships); the second, 18 feet deep and 29 acres in area, lies on the southwesterly side of the main channel, parallel to the shoreline, directly across from Yellow Mill Channel. A turning basin 18 acres in area and 35 feet deep located south of the Cilco Terminal.
  • A 15-foot-deep channel, 200 feet wide, extending from the turning basin up Johnsons River to a point 1,700 feet below Hollisters Dam, where for 1,100 feet it becomes nine feet deep and 100 feet wide until terminating at the six-foot-deep anchorage near Hollisters Dam.
  • A three-acre anchorage area midway up the Johnsons River channel, nine feet deep at the lower end and six feet deep at the upper end.
  • A six-foot-deep anchorage, two acres in area, at the head of the Johnsons River channel, near Hollisters Dam.
  • A one-mile-long, 18-foot-deep channel, 150 200 feet wide, extending up Yellow Mill Pond Channel to a point about 360 feet from Crescent Avenue.
  • A 1.1-mile-long, 18-foot-deep channel, 125 to 200 feet wide, extending from the vicinity of the Stratford Avenue Bridge, up the Pequonnock River, to a point 500 feet below the dam at Berkshire Avenue.