Maintenance Dredging of The Newburyport Harbor, Massachusetts Federal Navigation Project

The Newburyport Harbor FNP consists of a 9-foot-deep Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW), 200-foot-wide inner harbor channel, and a 15-foot-deep MLLW, 400-foot-wide entrance channel. The proposed work consists of dredging up to approximately 250,000 cubic yards (CY) of sandy material from shoaled areas of the FNP. All areas of the FNP will be dredged to the authorized project depth, plus one-foot allowable overdepth for the 9 foot channel and two feet of allowable overdepth for the 15-foot channel. A hopper dredge or hydraulic pipeline dredge will be used to remove material from the shoaled portions of the channels. The base plan includes approximately 60,000 CY of material placed by pipeline directly on the beach at North Point, which is located just west of the south jetty on the southern shoreline of the Merrimack River at the inlet on Plum Island in Newburyport, and the remainder of the material placed at two nearshore placement locations off of Salisbury Beach and Plum Island Beach. The northern nearshore disposal site, “Salisbury Nearshore,” is located just east of Salisbury Beach, 1.5 miles north of the navigation channel and mouth of the Merrimack River, with a footprint of about 1 mile long and 0.15 miles wide. The southern nearshore disposal site “Plum Island Nearshore,” is located east of Plum Island Beach, 1.2 miles south of the channel and is 0.8 miles long and 0.15 miles wide. Both nearshore sites are located between the 20-foot MLW and 30-foot MLW depth contours.

Division 35 -

Waterway and Marine Construction, Waterway and Marine Construction and Equipment, Dredging.