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On October 6, 2022, at the Armistead Monument at Fort McHenry in Baltimore The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) hosted a press conference to celebrate the commencement of the Mid-Chesapeake Bay ecosystem restoration project, following a $43.1 million contract award to Coastal Design & Construction (small business designated) from Gloucester, Virginia.

Key officials included, Senior Advisor to the President and White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu; Maryland U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen; U.S. House Rep. John Sarbanes; Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, the Honorable Michael Connor; USACE Deputy Commanding General, Maj. Gen. Richard Heitkamp; and Executive Director of the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT), Maryland Port Administration (MPA) William Doyle.

The Mid-Chesapeake Bay Island Ecosystem Restoration project, often referred to as Mid-Bay, is located adjacent to the islands of James and Barren in western Dorchester County, Maryland. The project is focused on restoring/expanding island habitat to provide hundreds of acres of wetland and terrestrial habitat for fish, shellfish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals through the beneficial use of dredged material. Habitat may include submerged aquatic habitat, mudflat, low marsh, high marsh, islands, ponds, channels and upland areas. The federal lawmakers have been urging funding for this project for many years prior to this key development.

The project develops a long-term strategy for providing viable placement alternatives that meet the dredging needs of the Port of Baltimore while maximizing the use of dredged material as a beneficial resource. Restoration of island habitat is necessary and valuable to the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. In the last 150 years, it has been estimated that 10,500 acres of this type of habitat have been lost in the middle-eastern portion of Chesapeake Bay. Remote island habitat is valuable as resting and nesting sites for migratory and shore birds.

The Mid-Bay project includes restoration of 2,072 acres of lost remote island habitat on James Island and 72 acres of remote island habitat on Barren Island, using material dredged from the Port of Baltimore approach channels and the Honga River, respectively.

Every year, USACE dredges nearly five million cubic yards of material from the channels and anchorages serving the Port of Baltimore to maintain current depths and widths for safe navigation. Once the material is removed, it must be contained or disposed of in an environmentally conscious manner.

USACE received more than $80 million in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to complete the design and preconstruction activities for this project, to include the first construction contract award.

Based on the current schedule, Barren Island may start to accept dredged material as early as 2024 with James Island accepting in approximately 2030, after sill and dike construction efforts to hold the material are completed at each location. The Mid-Bay project will provide more than 40 years of capacity to place almost 100 million cubic yards of dredged material, providing benefits to the Port until at least 2067.

Poplar Island, the ongoing ecosystem restoration project by USACE and MDOT MPA, wrapped up construction of an expansion effort in January 2021. The expansion provides substantial ecosystem benefits and additional dredge material capacity for the approach channels to the Port of Baltimore until 2032.

 

Official US Army Photos by John Sokolowski.

 

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