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Environmental Awareness

Navigational Dredging

Each year the Canal Corporation conducts maintenance dredging in order to maintain minimum water depths for navigation in the Cayuga-Seneca, Champlain, Erie and Oswego Canals. Four floating plants, staffed with permanent and seasonal employees, are located on the Canal in Waterford, Utica, Syracuse and Albion. Each floating plant has the capability to dredge by hydraulic and mechanical methods.

Hydraulic dredge sites are pumped to upland sites to allow solids to settle before the water is returned to the Canal. Turbidity (a measure of water quality) in return flow water is monitored on a regular basis to ensure silts are not re-suspended in the waterway.Mechanical dredge photo


Mechanical dredge sites (right) normally consist of coarse grained sediments. These sites are dredged  through the use of draglines, clamshells, backhoes and gradalls.





Photo of Hydraulic Off-Loader

Sediment is excavated and placed into scows for transport and off-load. Some scows are wet dumped at the active hydraulic dredge and then pumped upland. When possible, to reduce "wet dumping" the Canal Corporation uses a hydraulic off-loader (left) which pumps the sediment directly from the scow to the upland site.



Most dredging is conducted during the navigation season between May and November. Dredging at stream mouths is avoided during fish spawning time periods to protect these species. During the non-navigation season, when water levels are lowered, sediments are excavated in dry conditions.  The average yearly volume (PDF: 1 page/29 Kb) of sediment dredged is approximately  416,350 cubic yards.

Restoring Navigation to the Champlain Canal / Hudson River

Since the early 1980s, the Canal Corporation has not been able to maintain the navigation channel in the Hudson River portion of the Champlain Canal due to the presence of sediments contaminated with PCBs.  As a result, navigability of the Champlain Canal has gradually declined over the years hindering commercial traffic and large recreational vessels.

While General Electric (GE) conducted Phase 1 of remedial dredging in 2009, GE’s project focuses on environmental dredging and not navigational dredging and will ultimately provide limited improvement of the waterway for navigational purposes.  However, a July 2006 report by the Hudson River Natural Resources Damage Trustees (this link redirects to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation's website), a group representing the U.S. Department of the Interior, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, declared that the surface waters and navigational channel of the Hudson River were injured by the presence of PCBs in the sediment. 

Canal Corporation analysis indicates that the EPA-directed remediation project will address less than 15% of the navigational dredging needs in the Champlain Canal.  Absent a settlement with GE, the remaining 85% of the navigational dredging would presumably have to be conducted by the Canal Corporation at great cost.  Without completing all the necessary navigational dredging in the waterway, canal-related economic development in the surrounding upstate communities will be hindered.

As part of its remedial project, GE has constructed a facility that can process the contaminated sediments. By conducting navigational dredging during the remedial project, this facility could be used to process the extra sediments at minimal cost.  Further, the future reuse of the sediment processing facility is an important economic development issue for the region.  Several competing ideas for the reuse of the property are already taking shape in the community.  Without navigational dredging being conducted during the remediation project, the facility will be of limited use to commercial shipping due to the current navigation restrictions in the Canal.  Also, one possible reuse of the facility might be to continue its life as a sediment processing facility for use by the state if navigation dredging must wait until after the remedial project.  This alternative could delay the economic reuse of the property for up to another ten years, further delaying economic development in the region.

While a comprehensive solution to the issue will likely await a final settlement with GE regarding the NRD claim, it is in the best interest of all parties that increased navigational dredging be incorporated into the project’s Phase 2, scheduled to begin in 2011. Increased clearing of the channel will allow the project's tugs and barges to remove larger amounts of contaminated sediment and thus provide a more efficient operation in meeting the environmental goals of the cleanup.  Not only will increased navigational dredging increase efficiency, it will also help the historic waterway and its surrounding communities realize their true economic potential.

Additional Information:

If you are unable to access these PDF files, please email your name and mailing address to PublicInfo@canals.state.ny.us requesting: Canal Environmental Awareness "Yearly Volume" graph for dredging.

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