Posted on November 2, 2026
By Jerry Johnston, Crystal Upperman
Every year, America dredges the equivalent of a Panama Canal’s worth of sediment from federal navigation channels, harbor entrances, and inland waterways—about 200 million to 300 million cubic yards of sand, silt, clay, and gravel.1 The work keeps commerce moving, but much of the material goes to disposal sites. At the same time, public and private entities buy similar material for coastal restoration, port expansion, and other infrastructure projects. Too often, America pays to dispose of sediment in one place, then pays again to buy comparable material elsewhere.
That disconnect creates a market opportunity. Dredged sediment is one of the few domestic material resources the United States extracts at scale—and controls largely through public infrastructure—yet it is not consistently inventoried, priced, or marketed.2 There’s an opportunity for the United States to do what other leading maritime economies have successfully done: treat sediment not as a disposal problem, but as a strategic domestic asset.3
Much of America’s dredged sediment still goes to disposal
Because waterways continually shift and reshape, keeping navigation channels open requires regular dredging, which produces a steady supply of sediment.
The prevailing model has prioritized moving sediment out of waterways as efficiently and cheaply as possible, through open-water placement, confined disposal facilities, or upland disposal sites. From 1998 to 2022, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) estimates that roughly 30% to 40% of dredged sediment was put to beneficial use;4 the remaining 60% to 70% followed disposal or other waste-management pathways.5
Yet dredged sediment can support restoration and infrastructure projects while substituting for material that public agencies, ports, and private developers would otherwise purchase. The challenge is making these productive uses routine rather than project-specific.
Seaports are at the center of this opportunity. They generate large, recurring sediment volumes; bear substantial channel-maintenance and disposal costs; and sit adjacent to the coastal infrastructure that recovered material can protect or expand. Under the current model, sediment is treated as an end-of-project liability and disposal capacity as a finite constraint.6 In a functioning market, the same material can become a resilience input, a substitute for purchased fill, and—in some jurisdictions—a transferable asset.
The convergence of a statutory 70% beneficial use target with a pending federal standard rulemaking under the Water Resources Development Act of 2026 creates a narrow window in which the methodology for valuing dredged sediment will be codified for the coming decade. Shifting demand signals reinforce this timing: Louisiana’s pivot from river diversions to dredging-based land building, Virginia’s beneficial use requirement taking effect in December 2027, and growing offshore sand deficits along the Atlantic coast all position navigation sediment as a scarce domestic resource rather than a disposal liability.
A fragmented system keeps supply from meeting demand
USACE is responsible for the operation and maintenance of approximately 25,000 miles of navigation channels, 237 lock chambers at 192 lock sites, and the ports and harbors they serve.7 The work is carried out by a relatively small group of US-flagged dredging companies operating under long-standing domestic vessel requirements.8
Demand for suitable material already exists across several sectors. Seaports need engineered fill for expansion and other infrastructure projects, while coastal programs use material for restoration, flood mitigation, shoreline protection, and beach nourishment. Construction and manufacturing uses are also emerging, though many remain early-stage or site-specific.9
The disconnect lies in the fragmented dredging life cycle, split among federal, state, and municipal authorities managing the source; project sponsors and contractors extracting and handling material; and receiving entities using the sediment. These groups do not operate as an integrated system. Each receiving sector has different regulatory frameworks, funding mechanisms, testing standards, and timelines.10 As a result, usable sediment may go to disposal while potential users separately procure substitute material elsewhere.”
