Nearly 500,000 cubic yards of muck will be removed from the Grand Canal as part of a $27 million Indian River Lagoon restoration project, Brevard County Board of County Commissioners reports.
The dredging operations, expected to take four years to complete, officially started last week.
The project entails hydraulic dredging of the Grand Canal system from Pineda Causeway south to the north end of Samson Island.
Work includes muck removal from entrance canals entering from the Banana River and residential finger canals but excludes the canal between Port Royal Boulevard and St. Georges Court, which may occur later but not currently included due to manatee protections.
As part of this project the County has conducted sediment sampling in 2015, 2018, and 2019. These samples were tested for chemical constituents often found in dredged sediment plus a large suite of atypical analytes selected due to proximity to the military dump located in South Patrick Shores. Test results support moving forward with dredging.
The County has also developed a rigorous sediment sampling plan that will continue throughout the duration of the project.