Dredging Up Resources in New Jersey

By Rick Gimello

Many of the sites remediated and developed in the early stages of New Jersey’s brownfield program were large landfills requiring thousands of tons of fill and cover material. Since traditional materials appropriate for such use were often expensive and not readily available in New Jersey’s urban centers, alternative material was necessary if the scope of remediation and redevelopment was to expand.

At the same time, the deepening of the Port of New York and New Jersey resulted in the need to manage eight to ten million cubic yards of dredge. The question posed to the regulatory and the redevelopment communities was how to link the two issues.

Two major policy initiatives have since solved the problems. As a result, the remediation and restoration of major brownfield sites in New Jersey was accelerated while the deepening of the Port of New York and New Jersey to 50 feet was ensured.

Regulatory Framework Created
Historically, dredge materials from the port were placed on barges and dumped into the ocean at a location off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, known as the “Mud Dump.”  In 1991, federal agencies proposed new criteria tightening standards for ocean placement. These criteria were challenged in court by environmental interests, and in 1993 the ocean disposal of dredge material, and, subsequently, harbor deepening work, stopped because there was no visible alternative readily available for dredge disposal.

Necessity being a key ingredient for the change, the dredging crisis gave rise to a dredge material management study, which recommended specific actions including the initiation of an upland dredge beneficial use program.

The innovative management of contaminated sediments required a regulatory process that could advance dredging projects, while at the same time ensuring that alternative uses of dredge material were protective of human health and the environment. This was critical if host communities and the environmental community at large were to accept this concept of reuse.

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