Port Authority Receives Approval

The Port Authority has received approval from the Army Corps of Engineers to deepen a section of the Kill van Kull to 50 ft., launching the agency's ambitious $1.8 billion project to dredge the region's harbor channels to 50 feet and maintain its ranking as the leading East Coast destination for shippers from around the world.

Under eight separate dredging contracts, the Corps and the Port Authority are working together to deepen the Kill Van Kull from 40 to 45 ft. In the near term, the Corps' new action will allow the Port Authority to augment one of those contracts to deepen a section of the Kill van Kull around Bergen Point to 50 ft.

The work, being done between Bayonne and Staten Island, will save time and money by allowing the deepening work to be completed during the scope of a single project, rather than in two separate projects.

In the long-term, the decision by the Corps makes similar project consolidations possible to achieve 50-ft. depths faster throughout the Port.

The 45-ft. Kill Van Kull deepening project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2004. The Port Authority is working with the Army Corps and other federal and state regulatory agencies toward the goal of completing the 50- foot project by 2009.

Other stories from September 2002 issue

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