U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Port Authority of N.Y. and N.J. Start $79 Million Deepening Project; Investments Build Underwater Super Highways in Port of New York and New Jersey.

NEW YORK -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey today announced the award of a $79 million project to deepen the Kill Van Kull federal channel in the Port of New York and New Jersey to 50 feet. This effort is underway to meet the growing demands of the port and to improve navigational safety and accommodate the next generation of cargo vessels that require deep water to operate.

The Kill Van Kull is a main artery between the Upper Bay of New York Harbor and Newark Bay that provides access to Port Elizabeth and Port Newark in New Jersey and the New York Container Terminal in Staten Island. There are overall plans to deepen areas in Ambrose, Anchorage, Newark Bay, Arthur Kill, Port Jersey and Bay Ridge channels over the course of the next decade.

"The Corps is building safe and efficient channels to meet the growing needs of the shipping industry and the region's ever increasing demands for goods and services, while balancing the environmental needs of our harbor estuary," said Col. Richard J. Polo Jr., the Corps New York District Engineer. "The Corps, along with our sponsor, contractors and partner agencies, employs the best available dredging technologies on this project as well as taking a lead role in improving the harbor estuary. So, what is really exciting is that all materials dredged during construction of these underwater highways are, and will continue to be used beneficially, to either close landfills that were leaching contaminants into the harbor, remediate brownfields into wetlands, create recreational fishing reefs, or cap the Historic Area Remediation Site formerly known as the Mud Dump. It is truly a challenging construction project but equally as important, it is also an environmental success story in the making."

Port Authority Chairman Anthony R. Coscia said, "We continue to make historic levels of investments in our port, including our $760 million contribution to deepen the harbor channels to 50 feet. This project will ensure that more goods are moved into and out of this region, which will allow us to remain competitive in the marketplace as we strive to boost job growth and economic activity for the New York and New Jersey region."

Port Authority Executive Director Kenneth J. Ringler Jr. said, "This channel-deepening project is a critical part of the Port Authority's aggressive plan to make sure our port remains the leading East Coast destination for international shippers. The 50-foot channels, coupled with our $600 million investment in new rail infrastructure, will make sure we remain competitive with other East Coast ports, which will allow us to attract more cargo and the resulting economic activity and thousands of jobs in New York and New Jersey associated with it."

The contract was awarded to Bean Stuyvesant, LLC of New Orleans, La., which will be excavating more than 2.5 million cubic yards of materials. Of this amount, 128,000 cubic yards consist of fine-grained sediments, which will be treated and then used as landfill cover at the EnCap Redevelopment Project site and the Catellus Port Reading Business Park Redevelopment Project in New Jersey. The remaining 2.4 million cubic yards of clean glacial till will be utilized to cap historic deposits of dredged material at the Historic Area Remediation Site in the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the rock that is dredged will be used to create fishing reefs off the Jersey shore. This contract area is scheduled for completion by 2007.

"Though the harbor deepening project presented a number of challenges to maintaining marine traffic while dredging activities were ongoing, we managed to tackle these challenges through an effective working relationship with our port partners - primarily through the Harbor Safety, Navigation, and Operations Committee of the Port of New York and New Jersey," said Capt. Glenn A. Wiltshire, the Coast Guard Captain of the Port for New York and New Jersey.

"These relationships allowed us to realize our goal of ensuring the continued safe and efficient use of the waterway while the channel was deepened to 45 feet. We enjoy an excellent safety record and, with the assistance of our port partners, anticipate this will continue as dredging resumes to further deepen the channel to 50 feet."

Last December, the Corps completed deepening the Kill Van Kull and Newark Bay channels to 45 feet. A portion known as Area 5 near Bergen Point, New Jersey, presents a difficult turn for containerships and other large vessels navigating into Port Elizabeth and Port Newark, so the Coast Guard has established special requirements for transit "queues" to ensure the continued safe use of the waterway by all users while dredging continues. This area has already been deepened to 50 feet under a special contract with the Port Authority. Other ongoing work in the Harbor includes interim deepenings of the Arthur Kill Channel to 41 feet, as well as the Port Jersey Channel that services the Global Marine Terminal in Bayonne to 41 feet.

The Port of New York and New Jersey supports more than 230,000 direct and indirect jobs, generates $9.4 billion in personal income, and contributes $20 billion in economic activity to the states of New York and New Jersey. The port is a key gateway in the movement of imports and exports between the United States and the world.

Additionally, the Port helps lower the prices that local residents and businesses pay for goods that would otherwise be shipped via distant ports, generating an estimated savings of $750 million a year in reduced transportation costs to business and consumers in addition to the reduced traffic and air pollution impacts associated with transporting the goods into the region by landside methods.