Book Description

Toledo Harbor, at the mouth of the Maumee River in northwest Ohio, is the second most active port and largest single dredging project on the Great Lakes. Over 770,000 cub. m is dredged each year. material has been confined since 1955. Most of this half of the harbor was declared suitable In 1983, over water disposal. Monitoring of the open-water disposal has not shown any adverse impact on water quality. Studies of the release or bioavailability of phosphorus (P) bound to the sediments indicate that P is released from the sediments at a rate of from 10 to 30 percent per day. 'On an annual basis, dredging and disposal account for 0.4 to 0.6 percent of the total external loading of P to Lake Erie. High-resolution visible data from the French satellite SPOT were used to demonstrate the total extent of the dredging plume. Efforts will be made in the future to use the satellite for routine monitoring.