GALVESTON, Texas (Dec. 14, 2012) – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District, awarded a contract to Orion Marine Construction Inc. in the amount of $8,876,000 for maintenance dredging of the Matagorda Ship Channel to include a critically shoaled area of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway near the entrance channel in Matagorda County, Texas.
The contractor is required to remove approximately three million cubic yards of material between the Matagorda Peninsula and Point Comfort docks portion of the channel using a hydraulic pipeline dredge beginning January 2013 with a scheduled completion date of April 2013.
“The Matagorda Ship Channel supports the Port of Port Lavaca-Point Comfort, an important economic catalyst for Texas that serves chemical manufacturing industries along the Gulf Coast,” said Alicia Rea, an operations manager with the USACE Galveston District’s Navigation Branch. “Dredging of the ship channel will allow the channel to remain open for navigation and allow commerce including chemicals, petrochemicals, aluminum ore and agricultural fertilizer to be imported and exported.”
According to Rea, dredged material will be placed in open water placement areas.
The USACE Galveston District was established in 1880 as the first engineer district in Texas to oversee river and harbor improvements. The district is directly responsible for maintaining more than 1,000 miles of channel, including 270 miles of deep draft and 750 miles of shallow draft as well as the Colorado River Locks and Brazos River Floodgates.
To learn more about dredging along the Texas coast, view our four-minute video, http://bit.ly/KLZQBM. For more news and information, visit www.swg.usace.army.mil. Find us on Facebook, www.facebook.com/GalvestonDistrict or follow us on Twitter, www.twitter.com/USACEgalveston.
Release no. 12-070