Processing contaminated dredged material from the Port of New York New Jersey

Shipping activities in the Port of New York-New Jersey are currently threat ened by restrictions on dredging of navigational channels and private berth ing areas because of concerns about the environmental effects caused by oce an disposal of the dredged material. Current proposals for solutions to the problem include ocean disposal of uncontaminated material, use of confined disposal facilities (both upland facilities and containment islands), suba queous borrow pits, and processing and treatment for contaminated materials . A project to produce a complete "treatment train" for processing and deco ntaminating dredged material is described. The work is divided into several phases: treatability studies of commercial and nonproprietary technologies at volumes of 19 liters (bench scale) and up to 19 m(3) (pilot scale); spe cification of a treatment train; and implementation of a large-scale facili ty that can process 76,000-382,000 m(3) of dredged material per year. The g oal is to achieve operational status for the facility by the end of 1999.