Palmer Nabs Milford Dredging Contract

Dredging of the Milford Pond Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration project in Milford, Mass., will be completed under the terms of a $3.6 million contract recently awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District.

Work will be accomplished by Palmer Federal Constructors, Inc., of Lawrence, Mass. Construction is scheduled to start in mid- to late-October 2014 and take about 12 months to complete. The contract was awarded on Sept. 29, 2014. The construction must be completed by March 30, 2016.

“The project involves the dredging of up to about 250,000 cubic yards of sediment from a 17-acre area in the southern half of Milford Pond in order to restore open water habitat suitable for resident fish and water birds,” said Project Manager Adam Burnett of the Corps’ New England District, Engineering and Planning Division in Concord, Mass.

Milford Pond is a 120-acre freshwater shallow impoundment on the headwaters of the Charles River, and is situated in eastern Massachusetts in the town of Milford. The area to be dredged is currently between two and six feet deep and will be dredged to 12 feet deep. The dredged material will be placed in a shallow 34-acre area of Milford Pond adjacent to the dredge area in order to create additional emergent wetlands suitable for water bird nesting and Atlantic white cedar establishment.

The town of Milford, as the non-Federal sponsor of the project, is sharing in the cost of the project with the Corps of Engineers, at a 35 percent non-Federal to 65 percent Federal funding march. The project is being conducted under the Corps of Engineers’ Section 206, Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Program. The town of Milford requested that the Corps investigate alternatives to restore the health of the degraded Milford Pond ecosystem.

The project will be managed by the Corps of Engineers under the supervision of a Corps’ Quality Assurance Representative to assure compliance with contract requirements.