The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, has just awarded a contract for maintenance dredging of the Saginaw River.
According to the Corps, contract for the $1.47 million project was awarded to Morrish-Wallace Construction Inc., of Cheboygan, Mich., (d.b.a.) Ryba Marine Construction.
Ryba Marine will dredge approximately 165,000 cubic yards of sand, silt and organic material from the channel. The material will be placed in the Saginaw River Dredge Material Disposal Facility, DMDF, and the Saginaw Bay Confined Disposable Facility, CDF.
“ Completing this dredging project allows us the ability to address some of the significant backlog of shoaling in the navigation channel in the Saginaw Bay. This shoaling restricts commercial vessels to one way traffic throughout the channel ,” said Lt. Col. Dennis Sugrue, district engineer.
Saginaw River in Michigan, formed by the union of the Tittabawassee and Shiawassee rivers, 22 miles long, and flows northerly, empties into the Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron.
The Saginaw River channel, approximately 90 miles north of Detroit, Mich. with the Cities of Saginaw and Bay City located along the shoreline, is a federally authorized commercial navigation project.
Typically, dredge material from the Lower Saginaw River is placed in the Saginaw Bay CDF and material from the Upper Saginaw River is placed in the Saginaw DMDF. The maintenance dredging in the Saginaw River is expected to begin in July 2018 and will be completed by December 2018.
The contract was awarded under the Corps’ Multiple Award Task Order Contract, MATOC, which the Detroit District established with 11 companies capable of dredging in the Great Lakes.