Posted on November 13, 2018
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it has awarded a contract for $736,000 to dredge River Rouge in Detroit with the goal of removing 66,500 cubic yards of shoal material.
Cheboygan-based Ryba Marine Construction Company will remove the shoal material and place it at the Pointe Mouilee Confined Disposal Factory at the mouth of the Huron River, according to a news release. Shoal is defined as a sandbank that makes the water shallow, and its removal is meant to aid the River Rouge staying accessible for the movement of cargo.
“Dredging is the removal of sediments and debris from the bottom of lakes, rivers, harbors, and other water bodies,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports on its website.
“It is a routine necessity in waterways around the world because sedimentation — the natural process of sand and silt washing downstream — gradually fills channels and harbors. Dredging often is focused on maintaining or increasing the depth of navigation channels, anchorages, or berthing areas to ensure the safe passage of boats and ships.”
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This project is separate from the Lower Rouge River Old Channel clean-up, and is scheduled to start in April 2019 and end in June of that year.
The dredging project will take place from Dix Road to I-75, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District. Only the lower two and a half miles of the river is used as a shipping channel “from the turning basin to the river’s mouth at the south end and joins the Detroit River at the westerly limit of the City of Detroit.”
“This contract to dredge the federal channel in the River Rouge is important to keeping this navigation project open for movement of cargo critical to local and national industry,” Dave Wright, chief of operations in the Detroit District, said in the release.
Cargo identified by the Army Corps of Engineers as coming into the River Rouge as coal, iron ore, petroleum, slag, cement, limestone, lignite, fuel oil, salt, sand and gravel. In the Detroit District, the corps is responsible for maintaining 91 harbors, and four connecting channels which includes those connecting to Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie.
Source: mLIVE
