The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District, is proposing maintenance dredging and advance maintenance dredging of the Cape Cod Canal Federal Navigation Project in Bourne and Sandwich, Mass.
Public comments on the proposed dredging of the Cape Cod Canal are due to the Corps of Engineers by March 3, 2015. The Cape Cod Canal is a toll-free, open-to-all waterway that connects Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay. The project is used by both commercial and recreational vessels and eliminates the need to transit around Cape Cod, a distance of 135 miles and a more hazardous route.
According to the Corps, the proposed work involves dredging to remove about 150,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel from various locations in the authorized, 32-foot-deep by 500-foot-wide, main ship channel and the 25-foot-deep East Mooring Basin portions of the project.
Dredging is expected to take 3 – 4 months during the fall of 2015 and early spring of 2016. A Corps study is ongoing to evaluate the Federal interest in beneficially re-using the dredged material from the Canal project as beach-fill on a 2,500-foot-long eroded section of Town Neck Beach in Sandwich.
[mappress mapid=”19948″]