A Native of Portland, Bill Needleman, Portland Waterfront Coordinator. Retired Earlier This Year after 26 Years at City Hall. He was Previously in the Planning Departmet. Bill Said Today That He is a Contract Employee on the Dredging Project and is “very excitied” about it.
The cities of Portland and South Portland are moving forward with a critical marine dredging project aimed at restoring and maintaining working harbor operations in the Portland Harbor and Fore River area. The initiative addreses significant sedimentation that has impacted the ability of active piers, wharves, ramps/landings and marinas to support vessel berthing at all tide intervals.
The work includes dredging accumulated sediment within the identified piers, wharves, ramps/landings and marinas. Disposal will occur at either the Portland Harbor Confined Aquatic Disposal (CAD) Cell (for material unsuitable for open-water disposal) or at the Portland Disposal Site (PDS) for material determined by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to be suitable for such disposal.
Prock Marine has been contracted to perform this work, which will begin on Monday, December 15, 2025 and take place over two dredging seasons, which run from November 15 to March 15. The estmated dredge volume for this phase is approximaely 105,000 cubic yards (CY).
A key component of the project is the CAD Cell, constructed along the South Portland waterfront during the winter of 2024-2025. Selected as the most feasible alternate due to the contamination associated with decades of commercial and industrial harbor operations, the CAD Cell has a capacity of approximatel 277,000 CY and has already received approximately 39,400 CY of dredged sediment deemed unsuitabale for open-water disposal.
Funding for the CAD Cell and the first phase of infrastructure dredging was secured from multiple public and private sources. The State of Maine Legislature contributed $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), funds, while the Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) commiccted up to $6 million in multimodal funds. Local contributions include $4 million in Waterfront TIF funding from the city of Portland and $1 million from the city of South Portland. Additionally, the US EPA Brownfields program proivided critical permitting, assessment and environmental cleanp planning. The balance of project costs for infrastructure dredging will be covered through private contributions based on the volume of sediment dredged and future contracted costs.