Army Corps, county park many relieve Port's dredge dilemma

PORT MANATEE -- A dredging operation that cost less than originally estimated is paying a double dose of dividends both landside and seaside at Port Manatee.

Three weeks away from finishing a maintenance dredging operation in its turn basins and alongside its berths, the port is getting some help from the Army Corps of Engineers to make future dredge projects convenient and economical. Scheduled to take about 180,000 cubic yards of sediment and debris out of the water to increase the ship navigation depth at the port to at least 40 feet, the operation was projected to fill up the last bit of space available in its 93-acre dry land dredge spoil storage facility.

But with low bids from two dredging companies working on a combined project for the port and the Corps, there's enough money left to pay for a new drainage system at the port that will dry sediment faster so it can be hauled away to be used as fill. The dredging project was expected to use up the last on-land facility.

A Pompano Beach dredging crew is in the process of digging out about four feet of sediment in some places along the port's ship berths to make them navigable for some of the largest container ships at sea. The sediment and seawater is being pumped as slurry to the storage area.

Dave Sanford, the deputy executive director for the port, said the Corps is willing to haul away some of the spoil for use elsewhere. That could be Palmetto's Washington Park, where the county's parks director, Charlie Hunsicker, is considering building a hill and other "relief." The project could leave the port with a nearly empty storage facility, Sanford said, which would buy the port years of life for future dredging.

"If Charlie is able to do the type of project he envisions, they may be able to use most of material up there," Sanford said.

Earlier this year, the port began looking at other disposal options, including building an island or a section of an island with dredged sediment.

The port is also actively marketing its dried sea floor sediment for use as fill in other construction projects. It may also be used as cover material at the Manatee County landfill if county officials find that it is suitable.

Opening up more storage space could delay the port's need to find another solution for disposing of its dredge spoils. Sanford

said that if the site could not be excavated, the port has three or four years to find another solution.

The current dredging project was piggybacked on a contract the Corps let to dredge the 2.9-mile shipping channel adjacent to Port Manatee. During Thursday's regular meeting of the Manatee County Port Authority, a representative for the contractor doing the work at the berths, Cavache Inc., told commissioners that the dredge crew is excavating about one foot deeper than the 40 feet called for in the contract.

Matt M. Johnson, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7027, or on Twitter @MattAtBradenton.

This story was originally published December 20, 2014 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Army Corps, county park many relieve Port's dredge dilemma ."