New Bedford Harbor (Massachusetts) represents a highly contaminated harbor; PCB laden DMs range from 2 to 10,000 ppm. USEPA cleanup of the harbor is limited to PCB's over 50 ppm, leaving residual contamination over much of the active Port. Maintenance dredging has not occurred for over 50 years, forcing many piers to cease operations due to DM buildup. In order to kick-start needed maintenance dredging, the City of New Bedford embarked on an ambitious plan to dredge the slip adjacent to the City's most active pier - the New Bedford State Pier. Economic disposal of the contaminated dredged DM became the most challenging aspect of the project. After evaluating many options, the City settled upon a plan to beneficially reuse the material at a railyard brownfields site adjacent to the Harbor. Engineering for the project involved designing an efficient method for transferring the material to the railyard site and a scheme for amending the DM to make the material suitable for permanent placement as landscape berms at the railyard. The project was successfully completed, and the reuse of contaminated dredge material in this case also allowed for the rehabilitation and reuse of not one, but two. distressed portions of the New Bedford waterfront.
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