Dredging to cost $2.4M for shipping channel

6/3/2010

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday it has told Luedtke Engineering of Frankfort, Mich., to begin the annual dredging to keep the Toledo area's federal navigation channel open for large cargo ships.

Approximately 525,000 cubic yards of sediment is to be dredged at a cost of $2.4 million, the Corps said.

The channel spans 18 miles of western Lake Erie's Maumee Bay and a portion of the Maumee River that flows through the heart of the city.

Toledo is the Great Lakes region's seventh-largest port, but the most heavily dredged because of the shallowness of western Lake Erie.

This story has been updated and corrected from an earlier edition