Bay Journal, Army Corps awards contract for James Island restoration in Virginia
Preparations are beginning to rebuild James Island, all but lost years ago beneath the waves of the Chesapeake Bay. The Baltimore District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $53.83 million contract in early April to a firm based in Gloucester, VA, for the first phase of the island’s restoration as a nature preserve.
With the award, C&C Joint Ventures LLC will conduct hydrographic surveys and begin building a dike in the water to form the perimeter of the restored island. The firm also is tasked with dredging to create a sand stockpile for use in future dike construction.
This phase is part of an overall $122 million base contract that calls for additional upland dike construction and seeding of the sand stockpile, according to the Corps.
James is one of two formerly inhabited islands offshore of Dorchester County, MD, that were abandoned years ago as waves eroded them. They are being rebuilt using sand and silt that must be regularly dredged from the Bay bottom to keep navigation channels open to the Port of Baltimore. They will be successors to Poplar Island off Talbot County, MD, the first eroded Bay island to be restored with dredged material. Now home to many shorebirds, waterfowl, terrapins and other wildlife, the Poplar project is expected to be finished by 2030.
The Mid-Bay Project, as the new restoration is known, calls for creating 2,072 acres of marsh, ponds and upland habitat on James Island and 72 acres on the smaller Barren Island. The federal government is to cover two-thirds of the cost, with the Maryland Port Authority picking up the rest.
Construction activities on James were expected to begin in late April, with plans to have it ready to receive dredged material by 2030.
That’s quicker than I expected. Remember, this isn’t really about fixing James Island, it about having a place to dump sediment from Baltimore
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