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Port of Mobile Harbor Construction Underway

[ May 27, 2021   //   ]

Alabama’s seaport modernization program began construction on May 21 to deliver, by the year 2025, a deeper and wider Mobile Ship Channel and improve the lower harbor turning basin.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has executed two construction contracts in a multi-phase, $365.7 million construction program engineered and designed to deepen the existing Bar, Bay and River Channels Bar, by 5 ft each to a project depth of 50 ft, with additional depths for wave allowances, advanced maintenance, and allowable over depth for dredging (total depths of 56, 54, and 54 ft, respectively). The project also includes widening the Bay Channel by 100 feet for three nautical miles to accommodate two-way vessel traffic and other safety improvements.
The work-start represents a $53.9 million contract for dredging operations running a distance of 12 miles North of the planned widening area between Dauphin Island and South of the intersection of the Channel and Theodore Industrial Canal. The next construction phase is tied to an $8.3 million contract awarded in September 2020.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Alabama State Port Authority entered into the Project Partnership Agreement in June 2020 to allow for the contracting and construction phases to begin. The Mobile Harbor modernization program received full federal funding in February 2020, and in March 2019 the State of Alabama allocated a portion of state fuel tax proceeds to support approximately $150 million in bonds to meet the federal cost-share requirements for the harbor project.

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