The USACE’s dredging vessel Hurley is currently at Red Eye Crossing in Baton Rouge, La., conducting maintenance dredging of the waterway.
The dredging will be performed to a required depth of 60 feet with a 500 foot wide channel, allowing deep draft vessels to safely navigate the crossing.
Richard Miller, the dredger Hurley’s industrial electronics control mechanic, took this photo during the dredging operations on July 31.
The Hurley is a 353-feet-long, 108-feet-wide dustpan dredger.
Its two 1,500 horsepower motors drive pumps that can remove as much as 5,000 cubic yards of sand and sediment from the river bottom each hour using a vacuum-cleaner type head and deposit it safely outside the navigation channel via a long floating pipeline.
It can dredge as deep as 75 feet if conditions require.
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