Posted on September 28, 2017
By David Bauerlein, jacksonville.com
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expects to start dredging the St. Johns River in December after awarding a $22.8 million contract for the first phase of the harbor deepening project.
The award to The Dutra Group of San Rafael, Calif., “is a key milestone for an important project that improves port infrastructure so vital to our economy,” said Col. Jason Kirk, commander of the Corps’ Jacksonville district.
The Corps says deepening the ship channel will enable ships to call on Jacksonville’s port with more cargo on board, rather than diverting cargo to other ports that are less cost effective than Jacksonville for moving those goods.
The opening phase will take two years to deepen the river from the ocean to just west of the St. Johns River Ferry landing in Mayport. The dredging for this phase will not require blasting of the river bottom. Material removed from the river will be disposed in an off-shore site about six miles southeast of the entrance channel jetties, the Corps says.
The dredging will move forward while a lawsuit filed by the St. Johns Riverkeeper organization is pending in federal court. The Riverkeeper lawsuit seeks to stop the dredging, contending the Corps’ environmental impact statement fails to fully account for harm to the river and falls short of proving economic justification for deepening the 40-foot channel to 47 feet.
The Corps says deepening 13 miles of the river will cost $704.5 million, with the federal government’s share at $337.8 million and the non-federal share at $366.7 million.
The Jacksonville Port Authority wants to reduce the length of the dredging to 11 miles, which JaxPort says would make the cost $484 million. JaxPort has been in talks with TraPac, which operates a terminal for big cargo ships west of the Dames Point Bridge, about relocating to the other side of the bridge so an 11-mile dredge would still serve TraPac.
Source: jacksonville.com
