Posted on October 27, 2025
NEW HAVEN – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has scrapped plans to build a salt marsh in West Haven that would have used enough material dredged from New Haven Harbor to fill 200 Olympic-size pools.
Instead, the more than 650,000 cubic yards of silt and clay originally slated for the salt marsh at West Haven’s Sandy Point will be spread among three other sites – including two underwater “borrow pits” – as part of the Corps’ $84 million effort to deepen and widen the harbor’s shipping channel for larger vessels, according to a project official.
Craig Martin, a senior project manager with USACE, said in an email that the “level of containment” – or the barriers needed to form the salt marsh’s perimeter and keep the soft, silty dredged material in place – “far exceeded” what engineers initially thought.
That stronger containment, he said, would have made the salt marsh more engineered and less natural, required more long-term maintenance and nearly tripled the construction cost, from $7.4 million to $20.6 million.
As a result, officials determined that building a salt marsh at Sandy Point was no longer possible and removed it from the project’s scope, according to a public notice issued last month.
More than 4.6 million cubic yards of material is slated to be dredged from the harbor.
That material will now be added to what’s already being used to fill the Morris Cove and West River borrow pits, Martin said. Any excess material will be taken to the open-water Central Long Island Sound Disposal Site, where it will dumped on existing sediment piles from older dredging projects.
New Haven Harbor is the largest port in Connecticut and the second largest in New England, behind Boston Harbor. But it’s not deep enough to accommodate larger cargo ships, forcing them to off-load outside the channel.
The dredging project aims to deepen the main shipping channel by 5 feet and widen the waterway basin so ships can more easily maneuver in and out. More than 4.6 million cubic yards of material is slated to be dredged from the harbor.
Project plans call for most of the dredged material to be taken to the open-water Central Long Island Sound Disposal site, where it will dumped on existing sediment piles from older dredging projects. Smaller portions will be used to fill the Morris Cove and West River borrow pits and create an oyster reef near the harbor’s east breakwater. A rock reef north of the west breakwater will also be built using blasted stone.
Dredging is expected to begin in October 2026 and be completed in March 2029, Martin said. The project is in the design phase.
Deepening the harbor, city officials have said, will benefit the local economy by improving access for commercial ships. The harbor is a major entry point for petroleum products used by Connecticut and the rest of New England.
“It’s very important that that channel maintains significant depth in order to remain competitive,” Michael Piscitelli, the city’s economic development administrator, said in 2021. “By deepening the channel we’ll be able to maintain the market position of New Haven Harbor.”
The project could also bring environmental benefits. For years, shoreline residents have asked to fill the borrow pits, saying it would protect them from being used as a dumping ground for other dredging projects. A 2010 proposal to dump material from Bridgeport Harbor into the Morris Cove pit drew sharp pushback from city residents and then-gubernatorial candidate Dannel P. Malloy.
Martin said the pits are about 10 to 36 feet deeper than the surrounding seafloor, trapping organic matter and depleting oxygen levels. Filling the pits, he said, will restore habitats for bottom-dwelling marine life and expand breeding and nursery areas for several types of commercially valuable fish species, such as winter flounder.
