Posted on February 3, 2021
Congressman Dave Joyce (OH-14), whose district includes all of Ashtabula County, announced on Friday that dredging work for the Ashtabula and Conneaut harbors is included in the Army Corps of Engineers’ 2021 work plan.
The dredging of the Ashtabula Harbor will cost $2.29 million, and dredging in Conneaut will cost $911,000, according to a press release from Joyce’s office.
“As someone who has lived my whole life in Northeast Ohio, I am honored to have the opportunity to fight for the Great Lakes in Congress,” Joyce said in the release.
Both Ashtabula and Conneaut are deep draft commercial harbors, according to the Corps of Engineers. Both harbors were dredged in 2019. The Ashtabula Harbor requires about 100,000 cubic yards of material to be dredged every two years, and the Conneaut Harbor requires 40,000 cubic yards of dredging every two years, according to the Corps of Engineers.
Previously, dredged material from Conneaut and some dredged material from Ashtabula was disposed of by dumping it into Lake Erie, a practice called open lake dumping.
Open lake dumping was banned on July 1 as part of an effort to improve Lake Erie water quality, according to the Ohio EPA.
Instead, the material dredged from Ashtabula’s harbor will be used to restore seven acres of wetlands within the port of Ashtabula, said Susan Blair, with the Corps of Engineers.
What will be done with the dredged material from Conneaut is not clear.
“We are still pending a coordination meeting with the Ohio EPA and the Army Corps,” Hockaday said. Whatever is done will have to be coordinated with the Ohio EPA and the Corps of Engineers, he said.
The Ashtabula Harbor supports $118 million in business revenue, according to the Corps of Engineers. The Conneaut Harbor supports $105 million in business revenue.
Millions of tons of cargo passed through both ports in 2018, according to the Corps of Engineers.
