Posted on August 4, 2025
IPSWICH — The long-standing and often-divisive topic of dredging the Ipswich River has resurfaced with renewed interest from local and federal officials aiming to improve navigation, protect the Great Marsh, and revive the local clamming industry.
While no formal dredging project has been proposed for the river, discussions have been ramping up the past few months.
Sen. Bruce Tarr and Rep. Seth Moulton are both voicing support for dredging as a means of reopening the river’s clamming flats. The Division of Marine Fisheries closed the flats in February due to newly enforced Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations.
Tarr told town officials back in April that river dredging would “have a major impact on helping us comply with the requirements to reopen the shellfish beds.”
According to both lawmakers, the project could increase water dilution in the river enough to meet the FDA’s standard of 1,000 gallons of clean water for every one gallon of contaminated water.
Moulton, in a meeting with Colonel Justin Pabis of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on June 4 to discuss dredging the Ipswich River, highlighted the economic and cultural importance of the local shellfishing industry.
“Dredging the Ipswich River could make a huge difference in getting our clammers back out on the river, restoring incomes, and sustaining an iconic way of life on the North Shore,” the congressman reportedly told Pabis.
Waterways management
The river was last dredged in 1887, but the resulting channel has not been maintained since 1896, according to the town’s Waterways Advisory Committee (WAC).
As sediment has built up in the riverbed over the course of the intervening 129 years, certain sections of the river have become difficult — and sometimes hazardous — to navigate.
A 2019 study found that boating from Town Wharf to the mouth of the river is only feasible “within three hours on either side of high tide.”
The WAC further noted in its 2022 Waterways Management Plan that some channel areas have less than one foot of depth at low tide, leading to vessel damage and groundings in some cases.
While boaters have historically supported dredging for safer passage, the idea remains controversial.
Past proposals have repeatedly stalled since the 1960s, largely due to resistance from riverside property owners and commercial clammers concerned about damage to sensitive shellfish beds.
In its management plan, the WAC warned that dredging could disturb marine habitats, impact fish migration, alter water circulation, and release long-settled contaminants from the depths of the riverbed.
Dredging spoils
The select board has recently floated the idea of depositing dredged material — known as “spoils” — onto the adjacent salt marsh, which is another detail that is likely to stir debate.
In a letter sent to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on July 14, interim town manager Thomas Younger wrote that the town is “very supportive” of a Boston University study that looks into “thin layer placement of dredge material along the Ipswich River estuary.”
Noting that the Great Marsh has “degraded” due to such factors as the excavation of drainage ditches and waterways, Younger wrote, “Because of this, it has caused a decrease in sediment contribution to the marsh, introduced detrimental nutrients, and changed the marsh’s hydrology.”
Using the dredged sediment to build the marsh back up is an “environmentally sound way to manage the dredge materials while protecting coastal communities, such as ours, from flooding and other impacts of climate change,” the letter said.
The Local News reached out to Erin Bonney Casey, executive director of the Ipswich River Watershed Association, to get her thoughts on dredging. She did not respond to our interview request.
Clammers
Despite the growing political momentum, skepticism of dredging lingers among those who rely on the river for their livelihoods.
Paul Damon, a commercial clammer for nearly 50 years and a member of the town’s shellfish advisory board, worries that the project could lead to major disruptions — if not a total loss — of the clam flats in those areas of the river.
“Appeasing some recreational boaters — people with money [who want to] take their cabin cruisers out at low tide to Plum Island — comes at the expense of hard-working, blue-collar clam diggers,” he said.
“So, as a clam digger, I am not in favor of dredging,” Damon added. “But the big shot with the money usually wins.”
For now, the dredging discussion remains just that: a discussion. But it’s one with growing urgency and high stakes for Ipswich’s environment, economy, and identity.
