Dredging Material Management

Comprehensive Dredged Material Management Support

Several hundred million cubic yards of sediment are dredged from U.S. ports and waterways annually to maintain navigational channels and facilitate commerce, national security and recreation.

The regulations for dredged material disposal in U.S. waterways and oceans are complex, and are managed jointly by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Environmental Protection agency (EPA).  The USACE and EPA, in conjunction with a number of states, have developed guidance documents to support decision making associated with dredged material management.  To support this decision making process, Eurofins Environment Testing provides chemical and physical environmental testing services to assist in the evaluation of the potential environmental impacts of dredged material discharges.  

Potential dredging sites vary in their size and complexity. Dredged material evaluations often involve more than one environmental matrix, which can include sediment, surface water, elutriates, leachates, and tissues. Eurofins Environment Testing has extensive experience providing chemical and physical testing services in support of dredged material evaluations projects nationwide. These projects have been executed with oversight from various EPA Regions, USACE Districts, and state agencies. Guided by industry leading expertise and unmatched laboratory capacity, Eurofins Environment Testing’s goal is to generate chemical and physical testing data to meet project specific objectives, thereby facilitating appropriate dredged material evaluation decisions.

How Can Eurofins Environment Testing Help You?

Eurofins Environment Testing’s 20 years of dredged material experience has consistently demonstrated that a critical factor for project success is a dedication to pre-project planning, including Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) review, and an evaluation of targeted reporting limits for each project. Eurofins Environment Testing has the experience and resources to support each project team’s goals, achieving mutual success in the execution of dredged material evaluation testing programs.

Chemical Testing

Eurofins Environment Testing follows EPA methods and USACE procedures to evaluate dredged material samples for various contaminants of concern. Our chemical testing program supports matrices such as sediments, site water, elutriates, leachates and tissues.

Physical Testing

Physical, or geotechnical, testing is performed as a fundamental part of the dredged material evaluation process to support the characterization of sediment samples.  Since the late 1990s, Environment Testing has supported geotechnical testing for sediment projects. Our support includes a variety of tests including; grain size, atterburg limits, bulk density, specific gravity, water content, permeability of granular soils, classification of soils, moisture, ash, organic matter of soil, and others.

Elutriate, Leachate Generation and Column Settling Tests

Eurofins Environment Testing supports all industry recommended elutriate and leachate generation procedures, as well as column settling tests required under the Ocean Testing Manual, Inland Testing Manual, Upland Testing Manual and various state guidance documents.

Eurofins Environment Testing supports the following EPA and USACE Documents, as well as various State and other regional specific guidance for dredged material projects nationwide:

• National EPA/USACE Dredged Material Guidance Document
  • EPA / USACE- Inland Testing Manual - EPA 823-B-98-004 February 1998 [Gold Book]
  • EPA / USACE- Ocean Testing Manual - EPA 503/8-91/001 February 1991 [Green Book]
  • EPA / USACE- QA/QC Guidance for the Sampling and Analysis of Sediments, Waters and Tissues for Dredged Material Evaluations – EPA 823-B-95-00 April 1995
• National USACE Resource Document Providing Technical Guidance
  • USACE Upland Testing Manual - Technical Report ERDC/El TR-03-1 2003
• EPA/USACE/ Regional Implementation Manuals [RIMs]
  • EPA Region 2 / USACE New York District- FINAL Guidance for Performing Tests on Dredged Material Proposed for Ocean Disposal – April 2016
  • EPA Region 3 / USACE Baltimore and Norfolk Districts- Mid-Atlantic Regional Implementation Manual [MARIM] Dredged Material Evaluation for Norfolk and Dam Neck Ocean Disposal Sites
  • EPA Region 4 / U SACE South Atlantic Division- Requirements and Procedures for the Evaluation of the Ocean Disposal of Dredged Material in Southeastern U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coast Waters - August 2008
  • EPA Region 2,3,5& Great Lakes Program Office/ USACE Great Lakes & Ohio Division- Great Lakes Dredged Material and Testing Manual Main Text, App C, D, E and F - Sept 1998
  • EPA Region 6 / USACE Galveston & New Orleans Districts- Ocean Dredged Material Disposal Program Regional Implementation Agreement for Testing and Reporting for Ocean Disposal of Dredged Material off Louisiana and Texas Coasts - Jul 2003
  • USACE Galveston District Sampling and Analysis Plan - Private Dredging - July 2015
  • USACE Seattle - DMMP User Manual – Dredge Material Evaluation and Disposal Procedures - December 2018
• Regional Dredged Material Documents
  • New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection- The Management and Regulation of Dredging Activities and Dredged Material in New Jersey's Tidal Waters- Oct 1997
  • Northwest Regional Sediment Evaluation Team (RSET) - Sediment Evaluation Framework for the Pacific Northwest (SEF) July 2016
  • Washington State Department of Ecology - SMS – Sediment Cleanup User’s Manual (SCUM II) December 2017