Page 19: of Marine News Magazine (February 2019)

18 20

announced a series of authorized ten ‘benefcial use of dredge material’ projects around the country. Those projects are designed to use material dredged from one site and then utilize it for coastal restoration rather than wasting it through ocean dumping or some other type of disposal. It’s good policy; now more widely accepted in the environmental community. Therefore, we’ll push for more of this in the coming years. On the dredging window side, public offcials want their beaches built.

The adage used to be “don’t dredge during the summer months, it’s bad for tourism, all dredging needs to be concluded by Memorial Day.” That’s not true anymore.

I witnessed it. I was privy to a couple of dredging proj- ects this past summer in the Mid-Atlantic. And, I can tell you those counties want dredging and beach nour- ishment regardless of the season. I saw residents, public offcials and tourists visiting beach nourishment sites taking “selfes” from their smart phones with the dredge vessel in the backdrop and the pipeline pumping sand ashore. In short, I loved every minute of it. We’re mak- ing dredging great again! www.marinelink.com