Dredged Material Management Plan-Port of New York & State of New Jersey

BACKGROUND AND STATUS


DESCRIPTION:

 

 

 

The Port of New York and New Jersey must be dredged to maintain navigation and commerce estimated to generate about $20 billion annually in direct and indirect benefits. Due to past and present pollution, managing dredged material from many areas of the Port in recent years has posed both challenges and opportunities. To address either a lack of management options or the higher cost of the limited number of management options available, the New York District prepared a Dredged Material Management Plan (DMMP) for the Port of New York and New Jersey and an accompanying draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) in September 1999. The District completed a summary update report to the DMMP, as well as the finalized 1999 Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, dated August 2008. The DMMP is a document which has identified a wide array of both primary and contingency management options needed to meet the dredging requirements of the Port through the year 2065. A key element for success was giving special emphasis to beneficial uses of the material needing to be dredged to maintain efficient waterborne transportation into and out of the Port.

AUTHORIZATION:

New York Harbor encompasses approximately two-dozen separately authorized and maintained Federal navigation channels. These projects, whose authorized depths vary from 8 feet to 50 feet, along with the privately operated berthing areas, generate approximately 1 to 2 million cubic yards of sedimentary material annually from maintenance dredging alone. Further, several of these channels are either under construction or in plans for deepening in the upcoming years to accommodate larger vessels calling at the port. The construction of these deeper channels will also generate substantial amounts of dredged material. The DMMP process seeks to identify and implement options to manage the material generated from both the federal and non-federal maintenance and deepening of the Port through the year 2065.

STATUS:

The District completed a summary update report to the DMMP, as well as the finalized 1999 Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, dated August 2008. The update was reviewed by the NY/NJ Regional Dredging Team (RDT) and provides a summary of the actual and proposed disposal options for both Federal, State and local dredging contracts and Corps' Operations and Maintenance work for the years 2005-2008. The report stresses the continued need for coordination on the identification of placement sites and other options for non-HARS material. The DMMP will continue to utilize a wide variety of preferred and contingency management options for dredged material.

The DMMP will continue to utilize a wide variety of preferred and contingency management options for dredged material. These options include: 

Contaminant Reduction –Continued programs that will reduce exposure to contaminated sediments through source track-down, remediation, removal, containment, treatment, and/or capping of contaminated sediments.
Remediation of the Historic Area Remediation Site (HARS)– Dredged material is being used beneficially to remediate the HARS (an impacted ocean site) and will likely require decades to complete.
Habitat Creation/Enhancement/Restoration – Use of dredged material for restoring and creating wetlands, benthic habitat (including borrow pit restoration), fish and shellfish reefs, bird habitats and beach nourishment.
Land Remediation –Landfills, brownfields, quarry sites and abandoned mines within the region continue to be remediated with amended (or treated) dredged material.
Decontamination Technologies – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, New Jersey Department of Transportation and the Army Corps have demonstrated several innovative dredged material treatment technologies. The products of the treatment have a wide array of potential beneficial uses (e.g., construction grade cement, light weight aggregate, manufactured soil).
Confined Aquatic Disposal (CAD)- CAD facilities or cells are currently options included as a potential contingency.

The Army Corps continues to work with the NY/NJ RDT on a monthly basis to manage dredged material and identify placement options throughout the harbor. Future updates of the DMMP will be implemented through the use of an active website that will provide the public with updated information more frequently and track the goals of the DMMP more effectively.

Key Reports:

Volume I - 2008 DMMP Update Report (Complete)

1999 Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement 

Dredged Material Management Plan Facts 

DMMP Implementation Report

DMMP Technical Appendix 

Public Processing Facility Economic Modeling Summary Report March 2006

Potential DM Storage Facilities and Their Impact on PPF Economic Modeling Summary Report - June 2007

Site Evaluation for a DM Public Processing and Storage Facility - August 2007

Table 1: Current Dredging Projects (2009 to Present)                                                          

Table 2: Active Upland Dredged Material Placement Sites