Alaskan Harbor Plan Features to Reduce Dredging Costs

by Orson P. Smith, US Army Engineer Waterways, Experiment Station, Vicksburg, MS, USA,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Dredging and Dredged Material Disposal

Abstract:

The high cost of construction and maintenance of harbors in remote rural areas of Alaska has provided unique challenges to coastal engineers and harbor planners in designing affordable harbor facilities. The artic and subartic Alaskan climate precludes the use of harbor facilities in many places for all but a few months a year, during which their use is unusually intensive. High sedimentation rates in Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet have required that atypical features be planned for or incorporated in harbors at Dillingham and Ninilchik to meet economic constraints. These features, including perched 'half-tide' mooring basins, entrance channel closure structures, removable float systems and hydraulically optimized basin geometries, are all intended to reduce the need and cost of dredging.

Subject Headings: Ports and harbors | Harbor facilities | Dredging | Sediment | Maintenance and operation | Construction costs | Benefit cost ratios | Alaska | United States | Arctic

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