4H Construction Dredges Horseshoe Cove in Florida

4H Construction Corporation of Cleveland, Mississippi, began removing shoal material from Horseshoe Cove and the turning basin. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District awarded the $2,067,025 contract in December 2018. The dredging will return this area to its authorized depth of 6 feet, with 1 foot of allowable over-depth. The project is expected to last seven months.

The authorized federal channel is 1.75 miles long from the Gulf of Mexico to the village of Horseshoe Beach. Dredging will remove roughly 84,000 cubic yards of material from the channel.

The contract consists of a base and one option. The base work includes maintenance dredging at the Horseshoe Cove entrance channel and turning basin, from station 100+00 to station 183+00, and placement of material to the upland disposal facility located about two miles from the project site. Work also includes environmental species observers, turbidity monitoring, bird monitoring, sea turtle trawl sweeping and relocation, mobilization, and operation and maintenance of the disposal area. Option A consists of dredging of the remaining Horseshoe Cove turning basin from station 183+00 to station 190+73.6.

The maintenance dredging is 100 percent federally funded. The Corps received supplemental funds provided in Public Law 115-123, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. The act provides nearly $17.4 billion to the Corps for disaster recovery. Jacksonville District received $3.348 billion for long-term recovery investments in its area of responsibility, which includes Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.