Ogdensburg port dredging project starting in 2025, new environmental review needed

Andy Gardner, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
·2 min read

Apr. 9—OGDENSBURG — The Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority has to undertake a new environmental review for their port dredging project because they've changed where the dredged riverbed will be dumped.

The OBPA Board of Directors discussed the project during their meeting on Friday evening.

The original disposal location was on the Ogdensburg International Airport grounds, which was the dump site when the Army Corps of Engineers was involved in the project. The ACOE withdrew from the project in 2022 after the project, initially estimated around $11.3 million, actually came in at nearly triple that.

OBPA officials are now planning to dump the dredged earth at a location in their Commerce Park. The new environmental report is a federal requirement for the OBPA to get a $5.1 million USDOT Maritime Administration grant to pay for the project.

The review will have to include a cultural and historical analysis on the area they're targeting. The OBPA resolution says they'll spend up to $32,000 on the report.

It will require stripping off topsoil and then using it to recover the dredge soils. It also means they no longer need the Federal Aviation Administration to be involved.

"It's less cumbersome than doing it at the airport," OBPA Executive Director Steven J. Lawrence said. "To keep the project moving, we've got to move forward with this."

The dredge project will make a swatch 100 feet wide by 500 feet deep and 27 feet deep, the Seaway draft depth, adjacent to the harbor deepening. Work is now slated to start next year.

Back in April 2022, the OBPA had been expecting to commit $10 million to the project. The initial price tag estimate was $11.3 million. The corps put the project out to bid, and received an estimate from just one bidder for $27,670,615.

Because of contingencies the Army Corps was required to build into the project price, and increased construction and labor costs, the project's actual price ended up coming to $42.6 million. After the corps money and commitments from the state Department of Transportation, the authority would have been required to come up with about $11.3 million.

With about $150 million worth of goods traveling annually through the port, Ogdensburg is the only U.S. port on the St. Lawrence River. The port is strategically located to serve markets in southern Ontario and Northern New York. It has proximity to Ontario Highway 401 — a major Canadian corridor with access to 60% of Canada's population — and connected by Route 37 to Interstate 81, a major highway that crosses much of the eastern United States.