The words “faster, better, cheaper” are sweet music to the ears of any serious steward of the taxpayers’ money, and this summer the Hurley delivered.
“ Historical dredging costs have averaged $16.75 per cubic yard, and the Hurley cost $6.41 per cubic yard ,” explained Olmsted resident engineer Brad Bradley .
“ The cost savings on the material it removed from the dam construction footprint is well over a million dollars and that doesn’t count the savings from improving the schedule .”
It was the first time in the history of the project a dredge was used to clear the area on the river’s bottom where the dam shells would be placed.
The Louisville District regularly contracts for cutterhead dredges to keep the navigation channel open on the lower Ohio River.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Dredge Hurley was chosen for it special features.
The 353-foot-long, 108-foot-wide dustpan dredge vessel is out of Memphis, Tenn. Its two 1,500-horsepower motors drive pumps that can remove as much as 5,000 cubic yards of sand and sediment from the river bottom each hour using a vacuum-cleaner type head and deposit it safely outside the navigation channel via a long floating pipeline.
It can dredge as deep as 75 feet if conditions require, which they did.
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Source: usace, By Jon Fleshman, August 7, 2013; Image: Jon Fleshman