GE Selects Contractor for Hudson Dredging (USA)

GE has selected Cashman Dredging & Marine Contracting Co. LLC, a leading national provider of environmental, capital improvement and maintenance dredging services, to perform environmental dredging in the Upper Hudson River in 2011.

GE announced in December that it would perform the second and final stage of the Hudson dredging project over the next five to seven years. The work is scheduled to resume in the Upper Hudson River near Fort Edward, N.Y., in May.

The size and scope of the Hudson project make it one of the largest and most logistically complex environmental dredging projects ever conducted in the United States. GE assembled a world-class team of environmental engineers and dredging experts and conducted the first phase of the cleanup in 2009. The GE team has refined the engineering design for the second phase of dredging, based on technical discussions with EPA and the recommendations of a panel of independent scientists who evaluated the first phase of the project. All of GE’s work is approved and overseen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Cashman Dredging and Marine demonstrated through its work on the first phase of dredging that it shares GE’s commitment to excellence on the project,” said Tim Kruppenbacher, GE’s operations manager on the Hudson dredging project. “Our goal is to ensure that this cleanup is performed as safely and effectively as possible.”

Terms of the contract were not disclosed.

For dredging project products and services, GE’s contractors will continue to rely on local businesses, vendors, sub-contractors and service providers. More than 200 Capital Region businesses were hired during the first phase of the work. Interested local businesses are invited to visit GE’s online marketplace at www.hudsonworks.net to provide information about their products and services.

GE is in the process of selecting additional contractors to operate its sediment processing facility and railyard, conduct bathymetric surveys, perform monitoring activities during dredging, and habitat reconstruction work following dredging.

“We are proud of the work we accomplished in 2009, particularly our commitment to safety,” said Jay Cashman, chairman of Cashman Dredging, based in Quincy, MA. “We are looking forward to working with GE and EPA again.”

When the project resumes in May, dredging will take place 24 hours a day, six days a week, with multiple dredges mounted on barges. They will target about 350,000 cubic yards of sediment for removal in 2011 and approximately 2.4 million cubic yards of sediment over the full term of the project. The sediment will be dewatered at the processing, transportation and treatment facility that GE built for the project in Fort Edward. The dewatered sediment will ultimately be shipped by rail to federally permitted waste disposal facilities.

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Source: GE, April 7, 2011