Posted on November 7, 2022
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reports that nearly 30,000 cubic yards of sediment was dredged this summer from the Manistee River Channel.
Public affairs specialist Emily Schaefer with USACE Detroit District said the work was met with no challenges and was a straightforward project for the Corps of Engineers.
The project, conducted by the Army Corps and King Company, Inc. of Holland, wrapped up in August.
King Company hydraulically dredged 29,655 cubic yards of material from the outer harbor. Dredged material was used as beach nourishment and placed along the shoreline 3,000 to 5,000 feet south of the harbor, Schaefer told the News Advocate.
The Corps of Engineers’ maintenance of the federal navigation channels on the Great Lakes is an on-going process with dredging at various commercial and recreation harbors throughout the system annually.
Manistee maintenance dredging is typically executed on a three year cycle, where federal funds are requested from and if approved, appropriated by Congress. The Army Corps’ most recently performed maintenance dredging in 2018 and dredging to remediate contaminations was conducted in July 2020.
Dredging operations at Manistee Harbor take place in roughly three year intervals.
Over $4.1 million was allocated to Army Corps projects in Manistee in fiscal year 2022.
Schaefer said that regular maintenance of harbors like those in Manistee allow for a “more economical transport of consumer goods such as coal, iron ore, stone, cement and aggregate.”
“Dredging is important because it removes shoaled or accumulated material from the authorized shipping channel to allow for the safe passage of commercial and or recreational vessels and the transport/delivery of commercial products to and from harbors,” Schaefer stated in an email.
