Posted on May 2, 2025
MILWAUKEE — A major $126 million construction project, years in the making, is underway near the south side of the Hoan Bridge. It’s just part of a project that is going to make Milwaukee’s river ecosystem healthier.
“Behind us is a dredge material management facility. It is designed to hold contaminated material from the Milwaukee, Menominee, and connect rivers in the Milwaukee Estuary,” said Bridget Henk, the project manager with Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.
It’s essentially a bathtub, keeping contaminated soil away from the fresh water outside the walls that are being built.
Henk said much of the contamination in the rivers dates back to the Industrial Revolution.
“We used to be known as the machine shop of the world. We had heavy industrial usage along all of our waterways. And those heavy industries used our waterways as our sewers,” Henk said.
And it’s those same contaminants that still harm the ecosystem in and near our river system.
The dredged material management facility is huge. It covers the space of 13 football fields and is about 50 feet deep.
“It will really improve the entire aquatic ecosystem. So it should improve, you know, the quality of insects and the little invertebrates and crayfish, and also the fish. And, you know, ideally, it should be healthier for humans as well who are eating the fish,” said Cheryl Nenn, with Milwaukee Riverkeeper.
In 50 years, this facility will look very similar to the land just south of the construction.
“How we use our waterways today is very different than how we used it 50 years ago. It could be very different 50 years from now, so deciding what that future use is, we’re leaving that up to those future generations,” Henk said.
Whatever future use it may have, it must be for the public.
A past example in the city is the current port for the Lake Express Ferry, which is a capped sediment facility from decades ago.
Henk said this chance to clean our rivers is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
“That is, like, so exciting as the project manager, to be a part of a project that has that much regional impact and that much possibility,” Henk said.
“Hopefully in the next, you know, 10, 20 years, people can come out here and fish and not have to worry about the quality of the fish that could come out to the harbor and swim, not worry about whether it’s safe for them to be doing that or not,” Nenn said.
A big construction project, building a cleaner Milwaukee for generations to come.
Construction is expected to wrap up by the end of next year. After that, crews from the Environmental Protection Agency will be in town doing the dredge work that will move contaminated material from the rivers into the facility.
