Beneficial Use of Great Lakes Dredged Material

Currently, most material dredged from Great Lakes harbors, channels and lakes is placed in confined disposal facilities (CDFs), discharged into open waters or deposited on or near shores for beach nourishment. Great Lakes CDF capacity is diminishing and open water discharge is increasingly unacceptable to the public. With proper testing and government guidelines that protect human health and the environment, beneficial use of dredged material offers a sustainable long-term management option for dredged material. However, beneficial use of dredged material is hampered by a lack of adequate regulatory frameworks, market barriers and poor public perception. Beneficial use of dredged material has been an ongoing priority of the Great Lakes Dredging Team (GLDT). In 1999, the Great Lakes Commission, which provides staff support to the GLDT, received funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes National Program Office to carry out a project to advance the beneficial use of dredged material. The project addressed the need for alternative dredged material management options in the Great Lakes Basin. Under the project, a regional beneficial use task force was formed. The GLDT served in an advisory capacity to the task force, which met twice during the course of the project. A final task force report, which contains a series of recommendations for advancing beneficial use, was released in summer 2001. Also a booklet was produced to provide general information to decisionmakers and the public. These materials are available online via the GLDT website (http://www.glc.org/projects/dredging/). The report contains a series of 18 recommendations, a section on different beneficial use applications with examples throughout the Great Lakes basin, a section on innovative technologies for treating contaminated dredged material, and profiles of the regulatory framework for beneficial use of dredged material for each of the Great Lakes states. The GLDT has selected five of the recommendations for highest priority action and has developed an implementation strategy for these five items. Actions are underway to pursue the strategy. The Great Lakes Commission has formally adopted two resolutions calling for beneficial use of dredged material as a priority management option, increased federal research and funding, and expanded Corps authorities for beneficial use.