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Dredging Boston Harbor
Posted by Raven on May 30th, 2006
The Massachusetts Port Authority wants to deepen the 11-mile shipping channel into Boston Harbor to accommodate large cargo ships, a project that would move nearly 60 percent as much earth as the Big Dig.
The operator of the Port of Boston and the Army Corps of Engineers are close to finishing a four-year, $4 million study evaluating the economic feasibility of digging down through 5 to 10 feet of clay and rock to deepen the channel to 45 to 50 feet. The project, estimated at about $100 million, would have to be authorized by Congress, because the federal government would pay half the cost. The work would take about four years to complete and would not interfere with shipping.
“Our 40-foot channel puts us at a competitive disadvantage,” said Mike Leone, Boston’s port director. “The next generation [of cargo ships] is coming in deeper.”
Already some ships must ride the high tide to enter the harbor, and the Coast Guard is investigating whether a container ship scraped the channel bottom off Spectacle Island this winter — possibly a sign that ships could ground there in the future.
The last major harbor work for shipping was done in the 1940’s at Boston Harbor; it’s time.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
$4Million feasability study?
100 Mil to dig a big trough?
Boston is not known for it’s projects
even approaching forcasts.
Personally, I’d like to see a VAST reduction of cargo entering the US
from “away”. This idea is accelerating
the short term profits on cheap imported
crap, and eroding the long term economy.
I’d rather my tax dollars were spent on
heavy/passenger rail restoration.