Posted on July 26, 2023
By Judith Powers
The 2023 Dredging Summit & Expo drew more than 700 attendees, presented 65 technical papers, and fielded 115 exhibit booths displaying a full range of dredging equipment and services available to the industry. It was held on July 17th through 20th at the MGM Grand Hotel and Conference Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Two full days of technical paper presentations covered a wide range of projects, equipment, and techniques. Technical papers included multiple presentations on the Port of Houston deepening project, beneficial use of dredged material and engineering with nature, dealing with contaminated sediment and innovations in dredging equipment.
The technical paper committee led by Shelly Anghera presented the best paper award to Lori Brownell for “Accelerating Houston Ship Channel Expansion (Project 11) Update.” The Young WEDA best paper award to a presenter under 35 went to Connor Tennant for “Investigation of Bottom Roughness for Mechanical Clamshell Bucket Operations”, and the DSC Dredge-sponsored Dredging is Good award went to Andrew McQueen for “Sustainable Dredged Material Management on the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers to Achieve Multiple Benefits.”
The Women of WEDA breakfast featured speakers Kasey Eckstein and Jenna Gaudet, founders of Women in Maritime Operations (WIMOs), a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and advocating for women in maritime industry jobs. Headquartered in Garyville, Louisiana, their website is wimos.org.
Awards Honored Members’ Efforts
The 2023 Dredger of the Year is Dr. Shelly Anghera, principal scientist, vice president, and Board member at Moffat & Nichol, and WEDA Technical Program Chair, who has “dedicated herself to the advancement of science surrounding the work in the dredging industry specifically in creative solutions and regulatory issues. Her Ph.D. is in Environmental Health Sciences and Ecotoxicology from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and she is a leading expert on testing, categorizing, and reporting on sediment chemistry with an eye toward constructible permit conditions. Her career/education dove-tailed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) testing protocol, allowing her to apply these principals to dredging projects while completing her education.
Jennifer Ryan, left, of C-Job Naval Architects and Mike Warwick of Manson Construction, recipient of the Safety Excellence Award for its outstanding safety record in 2022. C-Job is the designer of Manson’s new dredge in progress
The 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award went to Dr. Donald Hayes, a Board-Certified Environmental Engineer whose 40-year career has included professorships in universities, research appointments, and generous donation of his time and expertise to WEDA, serving on Board of Directors committees and commissions including the Awards Committee, Partnerships Committee, Education Commission, Environmental Commission, Technical Papers Committee, the Environmental Excellence Awards Committee and the Gulf Coast Chapter. He is editor of the quarterly WEDA Journal of Dredging.
Connor Tennant received the 2023 WEDA Young Professional of the Year Award, a citation designed to reward professionals 35 years of age and younger. An employee of Manson Construction Company, Tenant, with a long list of skills he has developed, among which are construction engineering, project design and planning, slurry transport, dredge equipment and pump selection, hydrographic and land survey, data analysis and management, 3D CAD design and drafting, geomatics, and drafting technical specifications. He has been active in WEDA since 2016 and has lent his hand to the program planning of annual WEDA Expos since then.
A new award category was announced – the Dredger on Deck award – which will honor the people who work on dredges. The first WEDA Dredger on Deck is Wayne Kostuk, general superintendent at Sevenson Environmental Services, Inc. He is a third generation, 40-year employee, who advanced from surveyor to foreman and beyond, to manage multiple projects in the field.
The resumes of the award winners are impressive and will be available on the WEDA Website – www.westerndredging.org – the week of August 1.
Environmental Excellence awards were given in two categories: Partnerships and Outreach/Education, and Innovation.
The Spirit Lake Sediment Remediation Project received the Partnerships award. The project is on the site of a former steel plant, coke production, and wire mill, which since 1900 have released multiple contaminants on land and into the St. Louis River where it forms the lake south of Duluth, Minnesota. The remediation project is being done by multiple companies and agencies, including EA Engineering, Science, and Technology, Inc., PBC. (EA), BARR Engineering, AECOM, and J.F. Brennan, in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) , and the United States Steel Corporation {USS). It is a massive land and water remediation involving dredging, capping, stabilization, and planting of surrounding land and creating bridges and trails in the area. https://darrp.noaa.gov/hazardous-waste/st-louis-river-us-steel-site
J.F. Brennan’s Manitowoc 4100 dredge plant works in Howard’s Bay restoring depth to the navigation channel prior to beginning environmental remediation in Spring of 2021. Brennan received the environmental award for Innovation for its remediation of Howard’s Bay, which involved removal of contaminated sediment and placement of protective capping material. The dredge is working east of the Blatnik Bridge in Superior, Wisconsin which carries I-535 and US 53 over the St. Louis Bay, a tributary of Lake Superior between Superior, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota
J.F. Brennan Company’s Howard’s Bay project received the award In the Innovation category. The location, in Superior, Wisconsin, is in the St. Louis River Area of Concern (SLRAOC) and is the location of multiple shipyards, commercial shipping activity, and other industry since the early 1800s. The remediation involved removing 75,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment and capping the area to contain any remaining contaminants. https://www.epa.gov/great-lakes-aocs/howards-bay-remediation
The Safety Commission headed by Julie Hile presented Manson Construction Company with the Safety Excellence award for its 2022 safety record that posted zero recordable injuries for 42 percent of the year, including a five-month continuous run, three regions with zero recordable injuries of the years, reduced overall injury severity, and low recordable injury rates and lost time injury rates. Manson also introduced new working tools to its dredges to provide a safer work environment, including a high-torque wrench and Jaws of Life for pipeline assembly, and effective reporting procedures, all of which the company shared with the WEDA family.
Climate Change and Strategic Plan
For the past year, Environmental Commission members have been working on a white paper to describe WEDA’s position on sustainability and climate change. The final document, entitled “How the Dredging Industry Contributes to our Communities’ Resilience, Sustainability, and Adaption in Response to Climate Change” was presented to the members during a plenary session on Wednesday, July 19th given by the four authors of the position statement. Called “a living document,” by outgoing Environmental Commission Chair Craig Vogt, it contains forms for dredging companies to use to document their own successful sustainability stories, and the positive impact they are having on our nation and the world.
Craig Vogt is retiring from the WEDA Board of Directors after 33 years of leading the Environmental Commission after founding it in 1992. Steve Garbaciak has taken over as chair, and Jason Raimondi has joined the leadership of the group.
Thursday morning July 20thbrought the business meeting where four newboard of directors members were approved and five members approved for re-election. Board Chair and President Matt Binsfeld gave his President’s Report, in which he described the progress WEDA’s new Strategic Plan, which will be fully described to members in a special Webinar in August. The text of the report can be viewed at westerndredging.org. He complimented Executive Director Tom Cappellino and treasurer Walter Dinicola for their forecasting and budgeting that have kept the organization in good financial health through the pandemic and beyond. Other actions were creation and board ratification for standards of professional behavior while attending WEDA functions; praise to Education Commission Chair Kathryn Thomas on developing the WEDA webinar series; and a pilot program to introduce formerly incarcerated persons to the dredging industry and allow them to transition into the workforce.
WEDA members were able to attend the event without leaving the building, a boon as the outdoor temperature hovered around 110 degrees throughout the week.
A post-convention tour to the nearby Hoover dam brought a large group out of the building on Thursday, July 20, and onto two buses for the 45-minute drive to the dam, where they took a “hard hat tour” of the access tunnels and electric turbines run by the Colorado River water in Lake Mead.
The event ended with a sponsored lunch for members in a restaurant in the MGM Grand, where members carried on final conversations and recapped the event.
The Dredging Summit & Expo ’24 will be held at the JW Marriott Tampa, FL, from June 24-26, 2024. Early sponsorship/exhibitor packages are now available from Tom Cappellino at tcappellino@westerndredging.org or call 949-422-8231.
