NASDAQ-listed Great Lakes Dredge & Dock (GLDD) was awarded a USD76 million dredging contract to restore a Louisiana coastal area damaged by the BP oil spill in 2010.
The Oak Brook, Illinois dredging contractor announced on 7 July that the contract calls for creating 4.5 km of beach and dune habitat, as well as 114 ha of marsh on Shell Island in Barataria Bay.
The project is expected to require 3.7 million m³ of sand borrowed from the Mississippi River and 1.3 million m³ of marsh material borrowed from an offshore source in the Gulf of Mexico.
GLDD will hydraulically transport river bed deposits from the Mississippi River in a sand and water slurry through a 26-km pipeline running over two levees, under two highways, and submerged along the Empire Waterway to the island.
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Work on the project is scheduled to begin this fall and completed by the third quarter of 2016.
Shell Island is one of four barrier island restoration projects that are part of the USD318 million Louisiana Outer Coast Restoration projects approved for restoration in October 2014.
GLDD vice-president Steve Auernhamer commented, “Building and restoring the barrier island chains is a critical component of protecting Louisiana and the Gulf Coast from future storms and disasters, and we are privileged to continue to contribute to this effort.”
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
