Featured Projects

Masonville Dredged Material Containment Facility

This project for Maryland Environmental Service included the construction of the one mile Masonville Containment Dike in Baltimore Harbor, Maryland by hydraulically placing over 1,000,000 cubic yards from an onsite borrow source. The hydraulic dredge ESSEX began work in late June 2009 with final completion in early November 2009.

For more  pictures of the Masonville Dike Construction click here

LNG Plant Pascagoula, Mississippi

The clamshell dredge VIRGINIAN worked for approximatley ten months creating berthing area for the construction of a brand new LNG facility in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Sand Key Beach Renourishment, Pinellas County, FL

The clamshell Dredges ATLANTIC and VIRGINIAN loaded hydraulic dumps scows which were towed over 20 miles to the Hydraulic Unloader VICKSBURG for placement on the beach. This project required strict contol of dredging, towing and pipeline placement activities to ensure protection of the adjacent and environmentally sensitive hardbottom coral reef areas.

Boston Hubline / Duke Power

Algonquin Gas Transmission Company, a subsidiary of Duke Energy Corporation, had installed a new 29-mile long offshore pipeline buried within a trench they created for placement under Massachusetts Bay from Methuen to Salem. The 30-inch steel pipeline, the longest undersea gas line in New England, was designed to carry natural gas to serve the local and regional markets, and was referred to as the Hubline Project. This pipeline would be capable of providing natural gas transportation to emerging gas-fired electric generation markets as well as other shippers looking to access the Algonquin system from the North.

Although the pipeline was in-place and operational, there were several locations where the pipeline installation did not conform to the permit requirements. Portions of the pipeline were either buried too shallow or not covered with enough material. Norfolk Dredging Company used the Dredge ATLANTIC to restore the natural sea-bottom by taking the original mounded trench material along the sides of the pipeline which remained after the pipeline placement, and cover the pipeline while simultaneously restoring the surrounding sea-bottom.

The uniqueness of this restoration project is that Norfolk Dredging Company had to perform this work some five-miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, in the middle of winter, digging to depths of 120 feet over an active high-pressure gas pipeline, while working under a rigidly defined time frame for completion.

The project was completed on time and without incident.

San Juan Harbor Deepening

San Juan Harbor is located on the north coast of Puerto Rico. It is the island’s principal port, handling over 75 percent of the Commonwealth’s non-petroleum waterborne commerce and is the only harbor on the north coast affording protection in all types of weather.

The deepening of the Sabana Approach and Puerto Nuevo and Graving Dock Channels was awarded to Norfolk Dredging on July, 8 1998 and was completed in December 1999.

This Caribbean Project provided Norfolk Dredging Company a unique transportation challenge in that all the equipment required for the project had to be shipped inside containers resting inside the very scow material barges intended for the project. Two trucks, a wide assortment of dredging buckets, dredging wire rope cable, and a host of supplies were successfully transported over 1500 miles from Virginia to Puerto Rico.

Additionally, this project called for improving the angle of the bay entrance by 20 percent and improving the depth of most areas throughout the bay, making it up to 10 feet deeper in some areas. Some of this dredged material was comprised of very hard limestone that was difficult to excavate, but with Norfolk Dredging Company’s 100 years of experience, and the possession of a wide range of hard-bottom dredging buckets, successful excavation with materials typically requiring blasting prior to dredging was achieved.

Upon Completion of Both Phases of this deepening project, the actual dredging within this project was said to have had the largest direct impact on maritime cargo and cruise ships, making way for a proposal to build a $240 million pier with shops and restaurants in Old San Juan. In the end, the port was able to claim bigger cargo container capacity to compete with other Caribbean ports.

Norfolk Harbor Deepening

The PULLEN, ESSEX and CHARLESTON worked at different times on this channel deepening project, helping Norfolk remain one of the major ports on the east coast.

Baltimore Harbor / Poplar Island

The two bucket dredges VIRGINIAN and ATLANTIC worked together on this project. By realigning Tolchester Channel, navigation safety was improved for vessels traversing the C&D Canal. To accomplish this over 3,000,000 CY of clay and silt were dredged, transported and placed inside Poplar Island from barges using the unloader VICKSBURG. The maximum round trip tow distance was 75 miles.

Charleston Harbor Deepening

This project required the use of both the ATLANTIC and the VIRGINIAN digging more than 10 million yards to deepen the channels of Charleston Harbor. The material was disposed in the ocean using bottom dump scows. The maximum round trip tow distance was 39 miles. The material removed in this project included stiff clays (marl), sand, and silt. This project also required the removal of a submerged wreck. During this project Norfolk Dredging conceived and engineered a Value Engineering Change Proposal, which provided South Carolina Ports Authority with approximately 1,000,000 CY of sand for future port expansion while saving USACE approximately $1,000,000.00

Islands Marina Development

While rock digging is not our specialty, the hydraulic dredge CHARLESTON was able complete a customer’s hard digging project in order for them to continue with their development. Construction of a marina to be used in production of a major motion picture was months behind schedule. Norfolk Dredging was able to rapidly deploy equipment and help devise a plan to enable completion of the development and enable production of the movie to continue with as little disruption as possible. This project consisted of dredging lime rock and sand to create a shallow access channel from the ocean and a staging basin for vessels to be filmed.

Southern LNG

Norfolk Dredging turned an open field into berths for ocean going LNG ships. With an extraordinarily demanding schedule, construction of the docks began in a field with no water access. The dredge CHARLESTON transformed a mass of land 10 ft. above the water into a 42 ft deep berth ahead of schedule while construction of docks, piers, and roads encompassed her. Approximately 3,000,000 CY of sand, clay, silt, and rock were pumped on over 28,000 feet of pipeline during this project.

Boston Harbor

Bucket dredges VIRGINIAN and ATLANTIC performed this harbor maintenance job in the winter of 2004/2005. The disposal area for the material was in the ocean 20 miles from the dredge. The dredge ATLANTIC began the project offshore, dredging sand and cobble from Broad Sound North Channel. The dredge VIRGINIAN took over the project performing the remaining maintenance and extracted a sunken flat deck barge about 100-120 feet long and 40-50 feet wide from Broad Sound North Channel. The VIRGINIAN and ATLANTIC each removed several boulders from the channel approximately 8 feet in diameter. The crew did a superb job of coordinating with the local lobstermen to insure that they could both make their living in the waters off Boston.

Treasure Island / Long Key

The hydraulic dredge CHARLESTON performed this beach replenishment job on the west coast of Florida in Pinellas County during one of the busiest hurricane seasons in recent memory. Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne all passed through during the course of the job requiring a great deal of coordination with the Corps of Engineers and the local sponsors to rebuild many portions of the beach after the storms passed through. Norfolk Dredging completed this job without any injuries or damaged equipment.  Sand was pumped over 33,000 feet before construction of this beach was complete.

Craney Island

One of the biggest projects to come Norfolk Dredging’s way during the 1950’s was the Craney Island job. It was a projected $8 million disposal area to serve as a repository for dredged materials from pier slips and harbor channels throughout Hampton Roads. Covering an area of 2,500 acres, it was designed to fill local needs for a period of 22 years but it is still in use today through an excellent management program and new technologies. The first phase of the project included the construction of about 30,000 feet of levee, access roads, a road around the top of the levee, the placing of rip rap rock around the levee and the construction of sluiceways.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel

In 1961, construction began on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. This 17.5 mile combination of two tunnels, manmade islands and bridges would connect Virginia’s Eastern Shore with Virginia Beach, crossing the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Called one of “the seven engineering marvels of the world” the project was completed in 1964. Norfolk Dredging’s responsibility, among several dredging firms participating, was to construct the two tunnel trenches between Cape Charles and Virginia Beach and the causeways across Fisherman Island and the inlet bridge approaches. Equipment for the job consisted of the Dredge VIRGINIAN, two 1000 cubic yard dump scows, the 18” hydraulic dredge TALCOTT and attendant vessels.

USS Missouri Grounding

In 1950 Norfolk Dredging played an important role when the USS Missouri, the navy’s only active duty battleship, ran aground in shallow water off the Norfolk Naval Base. Using a pipeline dredge, the project took two weeks to dislodge the 45,000 ton warship.