The Port of Cleveland is starting a pilot program to sell much of the sediment dredged from the Cuyahoga River. The port has hired a landscaping and waste management company to collect and reuse the material.
The port and Ohio EPA have been at odds with the Army Corp of Engineers, which does the dredging and wants to dump the material into Lake Erie.
Port President William Friedman says Kurtz Brothers Inc. will start operating a sifting device in the river to collect some of the sediment. And Kurtz will take useable dredge material already stored in the port’s confined disposal facility. Friedman says the sediment has many uses including for fill material in
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construction projects, to make concrete and for landscaping.
"Duluth, Minn., has been doing something similar to this for some years," Friedman said. "It’s done, really, around the world. Dredge material can be used, it’s really just sort of the soil that washes down the river, so it makes sense to try to use it."
Friedman says the sediment has low toxicity levels. Each year more than 200,000 cubic yards of it are dredged from the river to keep it open for cargo ships.
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