The New England Regional Dredging Team: Sustainable Connections among Dredged

Material Managers

Drew A. Carey, CoastalVision LLC

Steven Wolf, US Army Corps of Engineers, New England District

Melville P. Coté, Jr. US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 1

NERDT Structure- Mid-Level Managers- Sudbury Group- State Teams- Local Planning Groups

- Regular meetings -Website

NERDT Organization

New England RDT benefits• agencies deal with broader, regional issues,

public gets involved at state and local level• collegial atmosphere at Sudbury Group has

helped agency staff build relationships and trust

• allowed us to discuss and resolve many issues absent project-specific urgency

• provides opportunities to address issues on a more regional basis

Example NERDT Collaborations

• Revisiting scientific basis for time-of-year restrictions, led by Massachusetts

• Promoting beneficial use of dredged material for beach nourishment and capping

• Providing lessons learned in the usage of confined aquatic disposal (CAD) cells

Time-of-Year Restrictions• MA Division of Marine Fisheries

developed site-specific recommendations

• NERDT helped promote the project nationally, surveyed members, and provided comments

Watersheds and coastal regions of Massachusetts used for TOY delineations

TOY Restrictions by watershed

Promoting Beneficial Use of Dredged Material for Beach Nourishment

Concerns about efficacy of nearshore placement of coarse material for beach nourishment

Identify Sites where Nearshore Placement Could Potentially Be Effective

Beneficial Use

• physical environment

• material type

Developing study to ‘seed’ coarse material with fluorescent particles and track movement from near shore placement

from Partrac

• And….

1958 Saturday Evening Post article on disposal at the IWS

Evaluating Potential for Beneficial Use of Dredged Material for Capping of Historic Industrial Waste Site

Planned future deepening of Boston Harbor could provide ample capping material

Beneficial Use

• Streamlining of data gathering using the EPA Ocean Survey Vessel (OSV) BOLD

• Side scan sonar used to map the edges of the historic disposal site

Lessons Learned from Beneficial Use Projects

• Need to plan well ahead of dredging project timetable

• Challenges with funding and meshing timetables of need for dredging and needs for material

• NERDT discusses issues regularly to identify potential solutions to overcome barriers

Lessons Learned from Confined Aquatic Disposal (CAD) Cell Usage for Dredged Material in New England

NERDT Supports Regional Sustainability Through Local Connections

• Discusses and resolves technical issues• Represents region’s interests at National

Dredging Team and conferences• Makes connections between state agencies

from five states and four federal agencies• Shares lessons for beneficial reuse and

resource protection across states

Thank You

• NERDT Co-chairs:– Mel Coté, Region 1 EPA – Steve Wolf, New England District, USACE

• NERDT Facilitator:– Drew Carey, CoastalVision LLC

www.nerdt.org