Burnham Bags Royal River Dredging Contract

Maintenance dredging of a portion of the Royal River Federal Navigation Project in Yarmouth, Maine, will be completed under the terms of a $ $2.1 million contract recently awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District.

Work will be accomplished by Burnham Associates, Inc., of Salem, Mass. Dredging is scheduled to start on or about October 1, 2014 and be completed by April 1, 2015. The contract was awarded on September 5, 2014. The project will be managed by the Corps under the supervision of a Corps’ Quality Assurance Representative to assure compliance with contract requirements.

“The work on this project consists of mechanically dredging the Federal navigation project, which consists of an 8-foot entrance channel, and a 6-foot anchorage in the inner harbor,” said Project Manager Michael Walsh, of the Corps’ Programs and Project Management Division in Concord, Mass. “About 82,000 cubic yards of predominantly silty-sand will be dredged by mechanical dredge.”

Dredging in the channel will require the use of a closed bucket to minimize turbidity adjacent to the dredge area. A closed bucket will not be required when dredging the anchorage. The dredged sediment will be disposed of at the Portland Disposal Site located approximately 15 nautical miles from the dredge area.

The Royal River in Yarmouth empties into Casco Bay, about 11 miles north of Portland Harbor. Initial work on the river, completed in 1883, consisted of constructing a channel, 4.5 feet deep and 100 feet wide, to the head of commercial navigation at what is now U.S. Route 95. This included removing obstructions on the bar at Gravel Point, about 0.5 mile downstream of the present highway, and several ledges near the commercial wharves at Yarmouth.

A 195-foot-long stone jetty was constructed on the river’s south bank, opposite Wolfe’s Point, about 0.8 mile from its mouth. In 1967, the Corps completed additional work in the harbor. It consisted of an 8-foot-deep channel, 80 feet wide, extending about 3 miles from the deep water in Casco Bay to the commercial wharves at Yarmouth; and a 6-foot-deep anchorage, 8 acres in area, at the wharves.