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container ship that sails partly empty is a con­ natural depth of New York Harbor is 20 feet. tainer ship that's not meeting its full earning po­ Older container ships, which carry 3,000 containers, Atential. That's been the problem with the Port draw 45 feet. The newest class of ships, the post-Pana­ of New York and New Jersey: max and super post-Panamax Ships have had to sail in only part­ classes of container ships (so ly loaded, because the channels named because they're too large to aren't deep enough to support th~ traverse the Panama Canal), can draw of a fully loaded ship. carry 7,000 to 8,000 containers, That's why the Army Corps of and draw up to 50 feet, according Engineers' New York District has to Col. John O'Dowd, comman­ undertaken a series of estuary ini­ der and district engineer for the tiatives with the Port Authority of Army Corps of Engineers' New New York and New Jersey, and York D istrict. the states of New York and New The depth of the channels is Jersey to deepen the channels in driven by container traffic. The the third-largest container port in Port of New York and New Jersey the nation. is the largest container port on the Part of this work involves deep­ East Coast. Three million con­ ening the Kill Van Kull channel, tainers per year pass through their which connects Upper New channels, carrying $82 billion in York Bay with Newark Bay, and ocean-borne cargo. It is the largest serves as the main route for ships vehicle import/ export handling docking at the busy New Jersey port in the country, and the largest harbors of Port Newark and Port for refined petroleum products Elizabeth. and cocoa imports, according to Currently, the existing 40-foot the Port Authority of New York channel is not deep enough for and New Jersey. the larger container ships now in In all, there are 240 miles of use to come in fully loaded. The federal channel in the New York District. The Harbor Estuary Ini­ The backhoe dredge New York has been outfitted with a 13-cubic-yard bucket for tiative is addressing roughly 10 digging through heavy-duty material. miles of channel. to 45 feet in 1987, the first phase of the proj ect, w hi ch was completed in 1995. Phase IT began in 1999 and will continue until the end of 2004, at which time the Kill Van Ku J] and N ewark Bay channels will have been deepened to 50 feet. T he Arthur Kill and Port Jersey have been dredged to their interim depth of 41 feet. Work will begin again next yea r to take them to the 50-foot depth that is cur­ NEW JERSEY rently authorized. This dredging proj ect is the second EllZlIbeth

largest o ngoing proj ect fo r the Army Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/125/11/51/6355387/me-2003-nov5.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Corps of Engineers. The only larger one fo r the Corps is th e res toration o f th e Florida Everglades . The cost fo r the port-deepening project is quite high . The Kill Van Kull and N ewark Bay piece of the project was set at $733 million, for the initially budgeted depth of 45 fee t. The cost to bring the N ew York and N ew Jersey harbors to 50 The Army Corps of Engineers Harbor Estuary Initiative involves dredging roughly 10 miles of ship­ feet is $1.8 billion. The Arthur Kill and ping channels between New York and New Jersey to bring them to a depth of 50 feet. Port Jersey legs tac k on roughly another $600 million. The C orps and the Port The channel is di vided into nine contrac t areas. To Authority of N ew York and N ew Jersey are sharing costs date, the initial phase of work in five of the nine contrac t for the project. areas has been conlpleted. In many of these areas, work is ongoing to reach the 50-foot depth authorized by the BLAST OFF Water R esources D evelopment Act of2000. Where the harbor composition makes it possible, the The Army Corps of Engineers began deepening the Corps is drilling and dredging. [n areas such as Bergen Kill Van Kull and N ewark Bay channels to a depth of 40 Point; where the sediment is largely made up of diabase,

m"", ~"" like easy work, since it's the equipment that SHAKE, .,.,.,,"" ovv lifting. A visit out to the dredge Ne w Yo rk Army Corps of En gin eers qui ckly changed my RATTLE, takes a lot of co nce ntration in additi on to a

"'\IIe" . ~J"I \.. h was digging up rock in the Kill Van Ku ll near the Bay­ AND ROll ...... "T ", r " a huge, noisy, behemoth of a machine, with "Liebherr" print­ back, the name of a company known for massive machines. operator sits in re lative comfort in an air-con ditioned cab in, F\tII~p v feet up from the deck of the ship. Relative comfort is the operative because although it's quieter in the cabin than anywhere else on Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/125/11/51/6355387/me-2003-nov5.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021

The backhoe dredge New York has been described as the world's largest of its kind. It is one of four dredges currently at work in the Kill Van Kull. a granite-like rock, they're blasting first. single pass, Seebode said. T he dredge can support up to a In the Kill Van Kull , they're dredging nine different 25-ya rd bucket and, depending on the boom in use, ca n types of materials, each of w hi ch poses its own en gineer­ dig to a depth of 80 feet. There are two drill boats, the ing challenge. What the Corps refers to as clean mud­ A pache and M B 3 01 , and fo ur dredges (the back hoe essentially, mud that isn't contaminated by pe Es, heavy dredges New York, Tnuricavo l; and Mariacavo l; and the metals, and other toxic sludge-can go straight back out clamshell dredge Bean II) currently at work in the Kill to the ocean, according to Joseph Seebode, who is chi ef Van Kull. An additional clamshell dredge, th e Michigall , is of the N ew York/ N ew Jersey H arbor Programs Branch at work in Port Jersey at Bayonne. for the Army Corps of Engineers. The unclean mud, "Dredging the channels poses an environmental and which is too contaminated to be safely returned to th e engineering challenge. There's a lot of blasting, drilling, ocean, is mixed with cement; the cem ent binds to the and dredging to be done, and all that material to be dis­ contaminants and keeps them from posing an environ­ posed of," said Seebode, an enviro nmental engin eer. mental haza rd. This material is being used to cap landfills "There's also a social challenge to the project, since we're in Elizabeth, Linden, Bayo nne, and the Meadowlands in working not fa r from w here people live. We try to be N ew Jersey. sensitive to the concerns of the residents of the area, and Other m aterials that the Corps is dredging include be good neighbors." glacial till, which was left by the glaciers as they receded; Toward that end, the Army Corps outfitted the scows red-brown clay, which Seebode says is hard to dig; and that carry off the dredge material with wooden fl oors, to four varieties of rocks-serpentinate, diabase, sandstone, dampen the sound of rocks being dropped from a height. and shale. The project is using a liquid explosive for the blasting, Seebode is a civili an employed by the Army Corps, as and trying to do that during the day, so as not to disturb are m ost of the engineers on the project, including, for residents. According to Seebode, all of the blas ting ad­ example, project engineer Sherif G uirguis and team heres to or exceeds the guidelines laid down by state and leader Sam Di D ato. local authorities . In the Kill Van Kull, one of the contractors carryin g According to O 'D owd, the maximum allowable accel­ out the work for the Army Corps, Grea t Lakes Dredge erati on for a residential structure is 1 foot per second. So and D ock Co. of O ak Brook, Ill. , is using what it de­ fa r, he said, blas ting to prepare fo r the dredgin g opera­ scribes as the world's largest backhoe dredge. The back­ tions has not exceeded 0.15 feet per second. hoe dredge New York is outfitted with a 13-cubic-yard When all the work is done, the N ew York/ N ew Jersey bucket for digging through heavy-du ty material. It pulls harbor w ill once again be deep enough to support full y up more than a garb age truck's worth of material in a loaded container ships, maintaining the port's viability. _

ME C II A IC AL ENG INEErUNG OVEMllER 2003 53