$18.1 -Million Dredging Contract Awarded To T.L. James & Company

A contract to enlarge Bayou Chene and the Avoca Island Cutoff channel has been awarded to T.L. James & Company, Inc. of Ruston, La., by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Col. Thomas A. Sands, New Orleans District Engineer, noted in making the award that the work will enable shipyards at Morgan City to more easily move huge mobile offshore oil rigs into the Gulf.

The $18.1-million contract calls for a 22-foot-deep, 400-foot-wide channel from near the junction of Bayous Chene and Black and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway southwest through Bayou Chene and the Avoca Island Cutoff to the Lower Atchafalaya River near its mouth.

More than 2 1 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 cubic yards of material will be removed by two hydraulic cutterhead dredges working simultaneously.

In the disposal area on Avoca Island opposite Bayou Penchant, the material will be used to create new marshland, with gaps left between the disposal mounds to create a waterfowl habitat.

The upper reaches of the project in Bayous Boeuf and Black, and the section of the Intracoastal Waterway between the two, have already been completed, as has the lower reach in Atchafalaya.

T.L. James Company was the apparent low bidder in a field of three. Under contract terms, it has 22 months to complete the work. The construction is being done under the Congressionally authorized Atchafalaya River and Bayous Chene, Boeuf, and Black Project.

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