Every cubic yard a dredge pulls out of a ship channel has to go somewhere. Off Corpus Christi, the somewhere just got a lot bigger. The Environmental Protection Agency published a final rule on Sept. 28 that expands two ocean dredged material disposal sites in the Gulf, and the larger of the two now covers four times its old footprint.
The rule takes effect Oct. 28.
How much bigger the dredged material disposal sites get
The Corpus Christi New Work site, about 2.7 nautical miles offshore in 45 to 55 feet of water, grows from 1.39 to 5.57 square nautical miles. It’s pushed out in four directions, from 0.4 nautical miles to the southeast to 0.8 nautical miles to the southwest. The Corpus Christi Ship Channel site, about 1.7 nautical miles out in 35 to 50 feet of water, grows from 0.61 to 1.05 square nautical miles with a half-mile shift to the southwest.
EPA ties the expansion to two projects. The Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project, which deepened the channel to 54 feet, produced about 41 million cubic yards of new work material and is expected to generate about 208 million cubic yards of maintenance material over its life. The Port of Corpus Christi’s proposed Channel Deepening Project would add another 46 million cubic yards of new work and 7.8 million cubic yards of maintenance material. The port describes that project as deepening the channel from the Gulf to Harbor Island to as much as 75 feet for very large crude carriers, and it’s still in the feasibility and environmental review stage with the Army Corps.
The rule itself doesn’t put a capacity number on either site. It cites limited upland capacity as part of the reason ocean disposal is needed at all.
What the rule changes for dredging contractors
EPA designates and manages the sites under section 102(c) of the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act. It doesn’t authorize any dumping on its own. The Corps of Engineers still has to test each project’s material against EPA’s ocean dumping criteria in 40 CFR Part 227, and Corps permits under MPRSA section 103 remain subject to EPA review and concurrence. What changes is where the scows can go and how much room the disposal plan has.
For bidders, that’s a haul-distance and production question. A bigger permitted footprint close to the jetties gives the Corps and the port more flexibility in placement plans, which feeds directly into cycle times in a bid. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock and Callan Marine worked the major reaches of the $680 million improvement project, DredgeWire reported in 2023, and maintenance dredging on a 54-foot channel won’t stop.
The comments EPA didn’t act on
EPA received eight discrete comments during the 30-day window that closed April 13. They raised plastic pellets in dredged sediment, heavy metals stirred up by disposal, the cost and difficulty of monitoring larger sites, and opposition to ocean disposal in general. EPA made no substantive changes in response. The updated site management and monitoring plan calls for environmental surveys roughly every 10 years, covering water and sediment chemistry, bioassays and benthic communities.
Corpus Christi’s waterfront is already being rebuilt around bigger ships. The new Harbor Bridge is designed to give ships more clearance over the same channel. This rule clears room for the mud.