Dredging Highlights from the Past
40 Years Ago – 1978
Three land surveyors took a week to verify the locations for Trisponder transmitter stations at Jubail, Saudi Arabia, in preparation for the hydrographic survey to position a planned 40-mile-long approach channel to the new Port of Al Jubail on the western shore of the Arabian Gulf.
35 Years Ago – 1983
Potashnick Construction Company doubled production in its contract to deepen a portion of the Los Angeles shipping channel by installing a ladder pump on the dredge Hydro-Pacific. The pump was installed under the supervision or dredging engineer Robert Jantzen.
30 Years Ago – 1988
Rod Maddox of the Mobile District Survey Section told attendees at the Corps Survey Conference in Savannah that “GPS will likely provide the greatest impact to surveying technology yet seen and is here to stay.” He told the group that the Mobile District surveyors started using GPS, then known as Nav-Star, in 1984, first with in-house equipment and then on a contractual basis with Corps personnel as administrators.
25 Years Ago – 1993
The St. Louis Engineer District was in the process of installing bendway weirs on 16 Mississippi River bends that were subject to groundings due to build-up of point bars on the inside of the bends. The bendway weir concept, developed by Rob Davenroy of the St. Louis District, comprises a series submerged rock structures placed at a 30-degree angle to the current on the outside of the bend to direct siltation to the center of the channel, keeping the channel shallow and wide and eliminating buildup on the inside of the bend.
20 Years Ago – 1998
Hagler Engineering Inc. formed a joint venture with German company Krupp Fodertechnik’s Marine Technology Division to sell dredging equipment in the U.S. Krupp Hagler, headquartered in Augusta, Georgia, represented Krupp Fordertechnik, Krupp Vosta of the Netherlands and GIW Industries of Grovetown, Georgia.
15 Years Ago – 2003
In an early example of complete automation on an aggregate dredge, Kruse Controls, Inc. (now Kruse Integration) teamed with DredgeMasters International to produce a dredge that is fully automated, with all systems integrated to respond to changes in any system on the dredge. The dredge, named the Woodington, was built for Phoenix Pinelands of Barnegat, New Jersey.
10 Years Ago – 2008
Häglunds Drives opened the world’s largest hydraulic laboratory for testing its hydraulic motors, accessories and complete systems throughout the manufacturing process at its headquarters in Mellansel, Sweden. The plant covers 1,500 square meters and has a total installed hydraulic power capacity of 5.5 megawatts in 11 test cells.
