Growing up on the Mississippi River just north of New Orleans, it was not uncommon for a spring deluge to turn our deadend street into a waist-high pool. Just like rings on a tree, hurricane events marked the passing of generations. My parents each had their various tales from Hurricane Betsy in 1965. My own childhood was shaped, in large part, by more recent storms and evacuations. Ask any Gulf Coast resident about that “pre-hurricane feeling” and you’ll likely hear a description of anticipation, giddiness, and dread.
In May 1995, a massive flood inundated our home with three feet of water. All summer long, as workers piled moldy sheetrock and insulation along our street, my twin sister and I explored the strip of woods between our house and the Mississippi River. Drinking cans of Dr. Pepper, we imagined ourselves explorers as we watched the barges and container ships float pass us. I was fascinated by the parade of river traffic—and that fascination stuck with me throughout my childhood. As I grew, so did the size of maritime vessels. Globalization increased the amount of freight traversing the oceans and entering the Port of New Orleans. Larger boats needed deeper ports to safely dock and unload cargo. But this was somewhat of a Sisphyean endeavor, because the Mississippi River is akin to a fire hose of mud and silt. To prevent shoaling (the buildup of sand and sediment), boats called dredge vessels were needed to keep waterways navigable and ports deep enough for vessels to dock.
Dredge vessels are also ships that (literally) shape the land we live on, at least in coastal areas. They were used to build the Palm Islands off the coast of Dubai, and they’re how the low-lying Netherlands fight off the North Sea. There are many kinds of dredge vessels, but for the purposes of this story, the ones we care about are trailing suction hopper dredges, commonly known as “hopper dredges.” These are ocean-going vessels that can endure fierce currents. They do their work by deploying long pipes that suck up sediment on the seafloor, which is then deposited into a large bin, or “hopper,” and then transported to a site for restoration or land-building. I’ve always felt it helpful to think of hopper dredges as the Megamaid from Spaceballs.
By building up the shoreline, hopper dredges help keep Louisiana safe from the sea, but we don’t have nearly enough of them to protect the coastline of my home state, let alone the rest of the country. Currently, the United States’ hopper dredge fleet consists of just 19 vessels, four of which are mothballed by Congress. The other 15 are owned by five private companies. Compare this to the 55 hopper dredges in the Netherlands’ private fleet or China’s ever-growing land-building fleet. With such a paltry collection of vessels, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which we’ll refer to as “the Corps” going forward) is responsible for maintaining 12,000 miles of inland and intracoastal waterways, 180 ports, and 95,471 miles of shoreline.
History shows the Corps does not have the tools it needs to do its job. Louisiana has lost nearly 1,900 square miles of land since the 1930s and is projected to lose another 674 square miles before 2050. This is land that slows hurricanes down—land that could have slowed Hurricane Katrina down, for example. Louisiana is not the only place in need of dredge vessels, but as with other poor coastal states, many communities are forced to languish on a waiting list that moves too slow to address these emergencies in time. At the time of this writing, most of the nation’s dredge vessels were either drydocked for repairs or deployed across eight far-flung states. (...)
Since the 1970s, the private dredging industry has fought a relentless war to eliminate competition from the public sector. Between 1899 and 1949, the Corps built 150 dredges which were used to develop waterways and ports. But when it came time to replace these aging vessels in the mid-1960s, private businesses saw an opportunity to seize those lucrative contracts for themselves.
by Megan Milliken Biven, Current Affairs | Read more:
Image: uncredited
In May 1995, a massive flood inundated our home with three feet of water. All summer long, as workers piled moldy sheetrock and insulation along our street, my twin sister and I explored the strip of woods between our house and the Mississippi River. Drinking cans of Dr. Pepper, we imagined ourselves explorers as we watched the barges and container ships float pass us. I was fascinated by the parade of river traffic—and that fascination stuck with me throughout my childhood. As I grew, so did the size of maritime vessels. Globalization increased the amount of freight traversing the oceans and entering the Port of New Orleans. Larger boats needed deeper ports to safely dock and unload cargo. But this was somewhat of a Sisphyean endeavor, because the Mississippi River is akin to a fire hose of mud and silt. To prevent shoaling (the buildup of sand and sediment), boats called dredge vessels were needed to keep waterways navigable and ports deep enough for vessels to dock.
Dredge vessels are also ships that (literally) shape the land we live on, at least in coastal areas. They were used to build the Palm Islands off the coast of Dubai, and they’re how the low-lying Netherlands fight off the North Sea. There are many kinds of dredge vessels, but for the purposes of this story, the ones we care about are trailing suction hopper dredges, commonly known as “hopper dredges.” These are ocean-going vessels that can endure fierce currents. They do their work by deploying long pipes that suck up sediment on the seafloor, which is then deposited into a large bin, or “hopper,” and then transported to a site for restoration or land-building. I’ve always felt it helpful to think of hopper dredges as the Megamaid from Spaceballs.By building up the shoreline, hopper dredges help keep Louisiana safe from the sea, but we don’t have nearly enough of them to protect the coastline of my home state, let alone the rest of the country. Currently, the United States’ hopper dredge fleet consists of just 19 vessels, four of which are mothballed by Congress. The other 15 are owned by five private companies. Compare this to the 55 hopper dredges in the Netherlands’ private fleet or China’s ever-growing land-building fleet. With such a paltry collection of vessels, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which we’ll refer to as “the Corps” going forward) is responsible for maintaining 12,000 miles of inland and intracoastal waterways, 180 ports, and 95,471 miles of shoreline.
History shows the Corps does not have the tools it needs to do its job. Louisiana has lost nearly 1,900 square miles of land since the 1930s and is projected to lose another 674 square miles before 2050. This is land that slows hurricanes down—land that could have slowed Hurricane Katrina down, for example. Louisiana is not the only place in need of dredge vessels, but as with other poor coastal states, many communities are forced to languish on a waiting list that moves too slow to address these emergencies in time. At the time of this writing, most of the nation’s dredge vessels were either drydocked for repairs or deployed across eight far-flung states. (...)
Since the 1970s, the private dredging industry has fought a relentless war to eliminate competition from the public sector. Between 1899 and 1949, the Corps built 150 dredges which were used to develop waterways and ports. But when it came time to replace these aging vessels in the mid-1960s, private businesses saw an opportunity to seize those lucrative contracts for themselves.
by Megan Milliken Biven, Current Affairs | Read more:
Image: uncredited
