The River Parrett dredging work is about to begin this week, now between Burrowbridge and Northmoor.
The project is organised by the Somerset Drainage Boards Consortium for the Somerset Rivers Authority – using contractors Van Oord.
Today, the water injection dredger (WID) Borr was offloaded for assembly at Dunball, before being craned into the river and sailed down to Westonzoyland.
The work is part of an SRA partnership programme that is helping to protect around 1,300 homes and businesses, and around 7,500 hectares of land.
Water injection dredging is a dredging technique that removes sediment ‘the natural way’.
According to Van Oord, it is an efficient and environmentally friendly way of maintaining the depth of navigation channels, ports and rivers.
A water injection dredger can work very close to embankments and quay walls because of the manoeuvrability of the vessel.