MPA Safe Passage (for pda/handhelds)

Partners at the Port of Baltimore are responsible for clearing approximately 4.7 million cubic yards of dredged material from the Harbor and its approach channels every year, just to remove sediment that washes into existing channels.

Placing dredged material in new locations is a continuous challenge. For hundreds of years, dredged material was simply placed overboard into the open waters of the Chesapeake Bay. But concern about environmental impacts grew, and this practice began to stop.

In recent decades, the placement and use of dredged material has changed dramatically. Options are now explored in detail and approved by participants in the state’s Dredged Material Management Program. Participants include scientists whose role is to ensure that the dredging program causes no harm to Maryland’s environment.

“Beneficial use” is now the preferred management option in Maryland, as stated in the Dredged Material Management Act of 2001. Beneficial use means putting dredged material to work in ways that are not only safe, but beneficial to the environment—such as creating wetlands, improving wildlife habitat, and restoring eroded islands. These types of projects are underway at Hart-Miller Island off the shore of Baltimore County and at Poplar Island in the mid-Chesapeake Bay.

“Innovative reuse,” another preferred management option, employs dredged material to produce bricks, cap brownfields and landfills, reclaim abandoned mines and quarries, and generate top soil for use in agriculture. The Maryland Port Administration and its partners are exploring other methods of innovative reuse that may increasingly transform dredged material from a problem into a resource.

Monitoring is a top priority. The construction of placement sites briefly disturbs the aquatic environment, but scientists and regulators have not detected any long-term negative impacts associated with the placement of dredged material. And in some cases, the dredged material has delivered significant environmental benefits.

The Hart-Miller Island monitoring program has become a national model. Scientists conducted a baseline study from 1972-78 to assess conditions on and around the island remnants before operations began. Scientists continue to track water quality and compare results. They collect and analyze fish tissue, as well as benthic organisms—tiny, bottom-dwelling invertebrates that live in the sediment and indicate aquatic health. The studies have uncovered no long-term chemical or physical changes in the sediment or water associated with operation of Hart-Miller Island.

The team that conducts dredge-related monitoring programs includes scientists from the Maryland Department of the Environment, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Maryland Geological Survey, Maryland Environmental Service, and University of Maryland.