Posted on July 1, 2026
Dredging will begin soon in the St. Joseph Outer Harbor.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Brandon Hubbard tells us they’ll start in early July and wrap up in August. Viking Marine Construction will remove 83,000 cubic feet of sediment from the harbor.
“Basically what they’re going to do is hydraulically dredge with a submerged pipeline some of the sediment out of the shipping channel there, and it’ll be placed half a mile down shore south of the harbor,” Hubbard said.
However, the sand won’t be deposited the usual way, along the shore to replenish the beach directly. Rather, Hubbard says they’re going to place the sediment perpendicular to shore to form a peninsula for research purposes.
“We’re looking at how the sediment that we place interacts with our weather systems in the Great Lakes. A big part of it is every year in the winter, we get a lot of movement. We want the information of what wave action does with the sediment as we place it. The study will allow us to measure some of those movements, and then that’ll inform how we do our dredging placement going forward on the Great Lakes.”
If this strategy helps mitigate beach erosion more effectively, then that could lead to a new strategy in future years.
Hubbard says the peninsula they’re forming will be largely underwater and usually not visible. However, he says people may notice more crews out at the beach in the coming year studying the results of the new placement strategy.
Hubbard also advises the public to keep a distance from the dredging equipment during the project. The work area will be clearly marked off by buoys.
