DREDGING Highlights from the Past: January-February 2011 issue

30 years ago
The Chinese government entered the field of international dredge contracting with their new company China Harbors Engineering Company (CHEC) which will coordinate all dredging and port works activities including overseas contracts.

A project to deepen of the Miramichi River in New Brunswick Canada was about to begin. The Canadian $8.8 million would deepen the channel from 6.5 meters (21 feet) to 7.6 meters (25 feet). Bid were closed on December 4 1980.

The Portland District Corps reported that 15 million cubic yards of volcanic material from the Mount St. Helens eruption had been removed from the Columbia River channel with plans underway to remover 10 million more.

20 years ago
GIW shipped an impeller 105 inches in diameter to Dredging International for their hopper dredge Antigoon. The impeller was designed to operate at flows approaching 100000 gallons a minute.

The Port of Rotterdam negotiated with Swiss chemical company Sandoz who agreed to reduce its discharge of copper and chromium into the Rhine River by 65 percent (copper) and 50 percent (chromium) by 1995. The pollutants all settled out in the Port which was causing a critical maintenance dredging problem in Rotterdam.

10 years ago
De Groot Nijkerk now Damen Dredging Equipment delivered a fully automated aggregate dredge to Dutch construction company Infracon. The dredge was radio-operated from land and the software controlled the dredging mixture concentration. When maximum depth was reached an alarm sounded alerting the operator on shore to reposition the dredge.

Hanson PLC acquired Davon Inc. an aggregates and ready mix concrete producer in Columbus Ohio for $99.8 million.