On June 16, crews aboard the clamshell dredge DB Avalon were out on the Patapsco River, scooping channel sediment and shuttling it toward processing at the Cox Creek area as part of the Port of Baltimore's annual maintenance push. The work is a coordinated effort by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Maryland Port Administration and private contractors to treat dredged material as a reusable resource instead of a throwaway problem. Keeping those approaches clear is critical for a port that handles roughly 2,000 vessel calls and moves tens of millions of tons of cargo every year.
The DB Avalon is a hybrid clamshell dredge that lowers a large bucket to the river bottom, hauls material up and drops it into scows, which are then taken to an onshore pier for offloading, a method U.S. Army Corps officials highlighted during the mid June operation. As reported by DredgeWire, the vessel is operated by Curtin Maritime on 24 hour rotating shifts, and the current Curtin contract covers roughly 1.46 million cubic yards during the winter through spring 2026 period. That setup lets crews stage dredged material for either beneficial in water placement or for drying and industrial reuse on shore.
How Cox Creek's STAR Facility Will Turn Spoil Into Product
The Maryland Port Administration has been redeveloping land next to the Cox Creek Dredged Material Containment Facility into a Sediment Technology and Reuse, or STAR, Facility designed to dry, sort and repurpose dredged material for habitat projects and upland products. According to the Maryland Port Administration, MPA purchased the STAR site in 2022 and expects the first 26 acre parcel to support reuse activities in 2026, with a target recovery of about 50,000 cubic yards this year and roughly 1.2 million cubic yards over a planned five year period. MPA says the strategy is meant to cut the long term need for new containment cells while turning spoil into products such as engineered fill, lightweight aggregates and shoreline stabilization material.
Building on Poplar Island and the Mid Bay Plan
Officials say the STAR approach builds on Poplar Island's multi decade track record of turning maintenance spoil into habitat. The Paul S. Sarbanes restoration effort has expanded that project to roughly 1,715 acres since work began in the early 2000s. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Mid Chesapeake Bay Island Ecosystem Restoration, or Mid Bay, project is advancing as the longer term placement plan and is designed to restore roughly 2,072 to 2,144 acres while taking in some 90 to 95 million cubic yards of dredged material over 30 years, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project materials. The idea is to keep navigation safe while building large scale ecological restoration at the same time.
Scale and Federal Backing
Annual maintenance dredging of Baltimore's approach channels removes on the order of 3.0 million cubic yards of material, a volume that has to be handled efficiently if the port is going to stay competitive and resilient. The U.S. Army Corps' FFY 2026 work plan and MPA planning documents show more than $229 million in federal appropriations slated for Baltimore projects in fiscal 2026, supporting harbor maintenance, Poplar Island and Mid Bay development, according to the Maryland Port Administration. Officials say turning dredged material into usable products can trim disposal costs and stretch placement capacity for decades.
What To Watch Next
In the near term, MPA and the U.S. Army Corps are pressing ahead with Mid Bay construction phases and capacity recovery work at Cox Creek while piloting industrial reuse at the STAR facility. Project teams say the mix of mechanical dredging, containment facility optimization and reuse trials is meant to make dredged material management more predictable and less costly for Maryland over the long run. For now, the DB Avalon work in June offers a close up look at that shift from simple disposal to beneficial use, while the Mid Bay and Poplar Island programs provide the backdrop for larger scale placement, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
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