The US Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District contracted ANAMAR to provide an updated version of the 2011 Site Management and Monitoring Plan (SMMP) for the Freeport Harbor Maintenance and New Work ocean dredged material disposal sites (ODMDSs) located off Freeport Harbor in Brazoria County, Texas. The updated Site Management and Monitoring Plan followed the revised Site Management and Monitoring Plan format for Galveston District and addressed the recent expansion of the Maintenance ODMDS placement area and the recently permitted dredging of Freeport LNG Development’s Quintana Island Terminal berthing area.
Project Statute
- MPRSA Section 102
The larger placement area covered by the revised Site Management and Monitoring Plan (SMMP) is expected to better avoid excessive mounding that could present a hazard to navigation and will accommodate current and projected volumes of dredged material by allowing placement over a larger area than the previous placement area had available. Sediment transport modeling results conducted by ANAMAR indicated that significant impacts to biologically sensitive areas are unlikely to occur.
The updated SMMP also addresses a recent change to the designation of this site and to the New Work ODMDS by EPA Region 6, allowing dredged material from the entire vicinity of Freeport Harbor to be disposed of at these ODMDSs, including non-federal projects such as the Freeport LNG Development berthing area.
The newly updated SMMP complies with MPRSA Section 102(c)(3) and is designed to allow the safe and efficient disposal of dredged material at the Freeport Harbor ODMDSs while minimizing the effects to coastal resources. The new SMMP provides up-to-date information on site characteristics, management objectives and conditions, disposal history, timing and techniques of disposal, and the results of past monitoring.
