Port of New York and New Jersey Harbor Deepening Dredging Project

To maintain its competitive status as a hub of global commerce, the Port of New York and New Jersey launched a 12-year, multi-project initiative to expand its harbor depth to 50 feet and accommodate the next generation of container vessels. GLDD executed multiple dredging projects in support of the program, utilizing every type of equipment it operates to provide optimal project performance. The region’s challenging geology – which consists of bedrock, glacial till, stiff clays, sand, and silt – presented several unique execution and scheduling challenges, but GLDD’s diverse fleet of drillboats, mechanical dredges, cutter suction dredges, and trailing suction hopper dredges blasted, pre-treated, excavated, and placed millions of cubic yards of rock and soil to the satisfaction of the program’s stakeholders. Where industrial age pollutants were encountered, GLDD employed environmental dredging and processing techniques to remove the soils, which were used to remediate brownfields in the region. In fact, all soils from the program were re-used as an offshore fish reef habitat, for coastal marsh restoration, or to cap the Historic Area Remediation Site offshore of New Jersey.