Jacksonville District awards $40.6 million contract for dredging the Canaveral Harbor Sand Bypass Project

USACE Jacksonville District awarded a $40.6 million contract Sept. 20, 2024, to Great Lakes Dredge & Dock, LLC., of Houston, Texas, for the sixth iteration of the Canaveral Harbor Sand Bypass project.
USACE will provide 100% the total costs to dredge and bypass approximately 1.5 million cubic yards of sand from the shoreline immediately north of Port Canaveral to be placed along two segments of critically eroded shoreline in Brevard County, Florida. The first segment runs along approximately 3.3 miles of shoreline starting just south of Jetty Park in the City of Cape Canaveral to about Shepard Park in the City of Cocoa Beach. The second segment runs along approximately 3.7 miles of shoreline from just south of Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach to the northern border of Patrick Space Force Base.
Work on the beach is expected to begin no earlier than Nov. 1, 2024, and be completed by April 30, 2025, when all equipment must be off the beach before the start of the next sea turtle nesting season. To ensure public safety, beach access will be restricted in the active construction zone (typically 500-1,500-foot long sections that proceed down the beach every few days), but will remain open elsewhere along the beach. Sand ramps will be placed over shoreline pipelines approximately every 200-300 feet to ease beachgoer access to the water.
The Canaveral Harbor Sand Bypass project is a federally authorized project designed to mitigate for downdrift erosion damages caused by the Canaveral Harbor Federal navigation project. Previous bypassing efforts were completed in 1995, 1998, 2007, 2010 and 2019, which pumped a combined total of some 4.7 million cubic yards of sand onto Brevard County beaches.
The USACE led project will be executed in partnership with the non-Federal sponsor, Canaveral Port Authority, Brevard County Natural Resources Management Department, their costal engineering consultant Foth/Olsen, and U.S. Space Force Space Launch Delta 45 to ensure the project is delivered efficiently, safely, and on schedule.