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Progress Update: Week of January 18, 2021

During the week of January 18th the Gowanus Canal Superfund Project Team (GCSPT) continued removing debris and sediment from the canal by dredging. Dredged material is loaded from smaller “mini” barges that can navigate the narrow canal to the transloading area at Huntington Street. The dredged material is then dewatered and transloaded to larger barges and shipped across New York Harbor to the dredged material processing facility in New Jersey.

Dredging between the Carroll Street Bridge and the Union Street Bridge remains ongoing. Due to the high volume of project related maritime traffic, the Carroll Street Bridge will remain in the open position from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM Monday through Friday to accommodate active construction. During this timeframe, Carroll Street will remain closed to vehicle and pedestrian traffic between Bond Street and Nevins Street until further notice.

In addition to the ongoing dredging work, GCSPT also began the pipe pile bulkhead installation operation that was detailed in the previous update. As a reminder, this operation involves driving steel piles (similar to steel beams) into the canal bed at multiple locations in order to support steel templates utilized as a guide for pipe pile installation. Ultimately, the Carroll Street Bridge and the Union Street Bridge will have pipe pile walls installed as bulkheads to support the bridge abutments during future phases of dredging. Pipe piles will also be installed at Turning Basin 1 (TB1) to create a bulkhead wall to support fill materials on the upland side of the canal. Installation of the steel piles at the bridges and TB1 is ongoing.

Photos of construction activities are provided on the remaining pages of this progress update.


Continued removal of debris targets between Carroll and Union Street


Installation of pin pile near the Carroll Street bridge


Dredging activities between Carroll and Union Street


Continued dewatering/transloading mini hopper materials into the large barge


Continued dredging activities between Carroll and Union Street