Housatonic River Dredging About to Begin

Maintenance dredging of the lower portion of the Housatonic River Federal Navigation Channel in Stratford and Milford, Conn., is about to begin soon, according to William Rock, a member of the Stratford Waterfront and Harbor Management Commission and chairman of its dredge committee.

The $9.3 million contract will be accomplished by Cashman Dredging and Marine Contracting Company, LLC of Quincy, Mass.

During the next couple of months, the contractor will move over 250,000 cubic yards of clean fine-grain sand from the channel, placing it directly onto the Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison.

According to the officials, the dredging that will take the channel to its authorized depth of 18 feet is expected to begin this week.

“For the first time since 1976 the channel will finally be dredged to a depth of at least 18 foot deep and 200 feet wide from just south of Goose Island to just beyond the end of the breakwater at the mouth of the river,” said William Rock.

The dredging window, due to environmental constraints, is October 1, 2017 to January 31, 2018, although the lowest portion may be dredged until February 28, 2018 and the beach may be graded into March 2018.

The Housatonic was last dredged in November 2012 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ dredge Currituck removed approximately 50,000 yards of shoal material.