A $1.5 million dredging project on the Penobscot River is expected to begin later this month, deepening the river by Cianbro’s manufacturing facility in Brewer so the company’s barges have enough room to dock and carry heavy equipment.
The dredging will allow Cianbro’s barges to reach the company’s Eastern Manufacturing Facility, especially as the Pittsfield-based contractor works on a $1.7 billion expansion of a major Maine shipyard.
The dredging will cover a 45,450-square-foot area by the shore — a little larger than three Olympic-sized swimming pools — that was first dredged in 2008 when Cianbro turned the defunct Eastern Fine Paper Co. mill on South Main Street in Brewer into a manufacturing facility.
That portion of the Penobscot River needed to be deepened at the time to make room for the large barges that dock along the river and carry heavy equipment from Cianbro to other parts of Maine and beyond.
Some 14 years later, that same area needs to be dredged again to clear away sediment that has accumulated and made the river too shallow for Cianbro’s barges to assist in a $1.7 billion expansion project at one of Maine’s major shipyards, according to the dredging application Penobscot River Holdings, a Cianbro subsidiary, submitted to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
The U.S. Navy Facilities Command contracted with Cianbro, alongside other companies, to complete a $1.7 billion dry dock expansion at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery. The project will extend the depth and size of the docks that support the maintenance and overhaul of Virginia-class submarines, which the shipyard builds for the U.S. Navy.
The Cianbro facility in Brewer will fabricate concrete portions of the dry dock expansion, requiring Cianbro’s barges to carry larger, heavier components down the river.
The Department of Environmental Protection approved the dredging application in July, stating the project “will not unreasonably interfere with existing scenic, aesthetic, recreational or navigational uses of the river,” and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted a permit for the work shortly after.
The state also determined the work would not hurt local wildlife or other marine resources because it’s unlikely any endangered shortnose sturgeon or Atlantic salmon would be present and spawning around Cianbro during the proposed dredging.
The dredging is expected to begin in mid-November and last until Jan. 1, 2023.
Some of the 10,000 cubic yards of sediment that’s predicted to be cleared away will be sent to a licensed landfill for disposal, the application states, but 6,000 cubic yards will be used as construction fill on an embankment at the Cianbro facility to combat erosion.