Dredged material and contaminated sediments management in the Port of New York and New Jersey

The presence of toxic contaminants in many harbors worldwide is recognized as a significant environmental and economic problem. The long-term solution is development of aggressive regulatory and industry activities to cleanup existing harbor contamination and to prevent future contamination. For the short-term, however, maritime stakeholders and the port community are facing increasing restrictions on their past dredged material disposal practices and need new strategies. Clean dredged materials have been used successfully in the past for a wide variety of beneficial uses. The future may well include the use of contaminated sediment. The Port of New York and New Jersey has a significant volume of contaminated dredged material to handle. The Port is looking for new placement alternatives for approximately 1-2 million cubic meters it must move annually. However, instead of seeing the contaminated sediments as a waste to be disposed, a policy decision by Port stakeholders was made to seek a sustainable approach for handling this dredged material. The US Army Corps of Engineers and the states of New York and New Jersey favor this approach of managing the dredged material for productive uses. However, there have been public and regulatory concerns about the use of contaminated sediment. Development of a systematic, internationally accredited management approach for assessing contaminated dredged material suitability for specific beneficial uses is the first step in gaining greater acceptance.