Posted on March 2, 2026
By Eric Conklin
Federal officials say three dredging projects in South Jersey are running behind schedule because severe winter weather has interrupted efforts to pump sediment onto the region’s fragile marshlands.
Two projects in New Jersey’s Intracoastal Waterway and one in the Maurice River will be completed in early to mid-March, according to Stephen Rochette, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Contractors for those projects were expecting to complete their jobs in February.
The projects began in January, but ice in the waterways has forced contractors to halt dredging operations, the Army Corps said.
Ice began forming in late January, when a powerful winter storm that dropped double-digit snowfall totals in New Jersey was followed by bitterly cold air.
A second storm contributed to the conditions when it hammered the state with heavy snow and strong winds.
The dredging projects are located in sections of the state’s intracoastal waterway in Atlantic and Cape May counties, which make up the 117‑mile channel running the length of the Jersey Shore, according to the Army Corps.
Under a contract with the Barnegat Bay Dredging Company, sediment is being removed from an area west of Brigantine and pumped onto wetlands in the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, a federally protected area spanning Atlantic, Burlington and Ocean counties.
Farther south, the same contractor is dredging to deepen the waterway west of Stone Harbor.
That work will continue into the spring and summer, when the company is scheduled to move farther down the Cape May County coast, the Army Corps said.
In Cumberland County, a separate contractor team has paused its effort to remove 80,000 cubic yards of sediment from the Maurice River.
That project is part of a multiyear plan to rebuild eroded marshlands in the Heislerville Wildlife Management Area, protected by the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife.
Years of flooding have worn away sections of those wetlands, which are critical habitat for migrating shorebirds such as red knots, the division said.
This Maurice River dredging follows similar work completed in 2023, when the Army Corps placed 60,000 cubic yards of sediment in the same area.
The effort also maintains a 7‑foot‑deep channel that supports vessels operating from shipyards along the river, which employ dozens of commercial fishermen and ship‑repair workers.
