Stone Harbor Dredging Scheme to Resume This Week

Stone Harbor’s maintenance dredging project is expected to resume over the next few days following a corrective action plan on some water drainage issues associated with a dewatering site located at the 81st Street Municipal Parking Lot. 

The Borough, its dredging contractor and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection addressed these issues over the past several days in order to comply with permits associated with the project.

“Public safety remains the number one issue associated with this dredging project, and we paused dredging operations until they were properly and effectively addressed,” said Stone Harbor Mayor Suzanne Walters. 

“The integrity of this project and neighboring communities simply will not be compromised whenever an issue arises in a complicated improvement project such as this.”

This maintenance dredging project involves the removal of 100,000 cubic yards of sediment from various navigation channels adjacent to Stone Harbor. The Borough last dredged these waterways in 2004-’05.

Background

On Tuesday, December 1st, a geotextile tube that was being used to dewater the dredge materials experienced a tear that released a slurry of material and water in the parking lot.

During this incident, a sump pump was used to pump the slurry back into the North Basin for a period of five minutes resulting in approximately 20,000 gallons of slurry being discharged back into the water.

Included in this slurry was approximately 20 cubic yards of sediment. Dredging later resumed in the North Basin.

On Friday, December 4th the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection visited the dewatering site and observed effluent water from the geotextile tubes was seeping through a dewatering containment barrier on 80thStreet; the water was being discharged back into the bay via storm water drains.

The contractor, Sevenson Environmental Services of Niagra, New York stopped the dredging operation a second time in order to address this issue.

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