Virginia-based Cottrell Contracting Corporation has won a US$7.9 million contract from the US Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, for dredging and sand stockpiling at Poplar Island.
The work will be performed in Tilghman, Maryland, with an estimated completion date of January 28, 2019.
The restoration project includes hydraulic dredging of up to 1.7 million cubic metres of sand from the Port of Baltimore's approach channels and stockpiling the material within one of the project's completed containment dikes.
Poplar Island, located in Talbot County in the mid–Chesapeake Bay, reduced in size from 445 hectares in 1847 to just two hectares in 1993.
This restoration process involves placing, shaping, and planting 30.5 million cubic metres of dredged material within a dike constructed to replicate the 1847 footprint.
The first two phases of dike construction were completed by 2002, and dredged material placement began in 2001.
A 232-hectare expansion project began in 2016 and will increase the total project size to 694 hectares, allowing for a project placement total of 52 million cubic metres of material.