Mobile Harbor produces roughly 6 million cubic yards of dredged material in a typical year. USACE recognizes thin-layer placement inside its sediment strategy, while Alabama's law taking effect on 1 October counts public-water placement only when it forms part of shoreline restoration or marsh creation.
Six million cubic yards is a programme, not a contract
Mobile District says roughly 6 million cubic yards are dredged from Mobile Harbor each year, about 4 million of them from the Bay Channel. Those figures establish programme scale. They are not the quantity for a named 2026 solicitation, and they do not say how much material reached each destination.
The distinction matters because the deepening and widening project finished in 2025 while maintenance continues. A completion notice for the 50-foot channel does not close annual shoaling, recurring excavation or sediment management. Each maintenance package still needs its own reach, plant, quantity, placement route and acceptance record.
Six checks
Follow each cubic yard from reach to accepted destination
The annual percentage becomes meaningful only when project identity, material, route, legal classification, capacity and acceptance remain connected.
01
Fix the maintenance package
Identify the solicitation, contract, channel reach, estimated quantity, options and material characterization before using the annual programme figure.
A package boundary separates the procurement from the 6-million-cubic-yard annual baseline.
02
Name the plant and route
Match cutterhead, hopper or mechanical plant to pipeline length, transport, diffuser, offloading and destination requirements.
Production and cost are tied to the logistics actually procured.
03
Test the state definition
For public-water placement, document whether the approved purpose is shoreline restoration or marsh creation rather than relying on a federal label alone.
Alabama eligibility is stated for each claimed beneficial-use quantity.
04
Confirm funding and capacity
Locate allocated federal funds plus a permitted, approved in-state site with demonstrated capacity for the suitable material.
Funding and permitted capacity are evidenced instead of assumed.
05
Measure the destination
Reconcile DQM positions, pipeline or hopper logs, placement limits, lifts and site receipts by route.
Measured route totals replace planned quantities in the annual percentage.
06
Close channel and site separately
Require post-dredge hydrography and channel acceptance as well as destination capacity, environmental monitoring and placement acceptance.
Separate acceptance records close navigation delivery and material-use claims.
Two accountable levels
The programme rule and the package record do different jobs
The national owner sets navigation and monitoring systems. The Mobile Harbor file must still allocate actual quantities, plant, destinations and acceptance evidence.
Annual maintenance with four federal-standard placement routes
What the record establishes
Approximately 6 million cubic yards a year move through a channel, plant and destination system that includes TLP, upland, Sand Island and ocean placement.
What still has to be published
Post-October work plan, quantities by route, federal funding, approved capacity, named plant, DQM record, hydrography and acceptance.
Nearshore placement is paired with a defined monitoring programme
What the record establishes
Viking Marine is scheduled to pump about 83,000 cubic yards to a perpendicular nearshore placement while ERDC measures turbidity, bathymetry and sediment movement.
What still has to be published
Completed August quantities, surveyed placement geometry and published turbidity, bathymetry and sediment-movement results.
Federal navigation owner and dredging programme manager
What the record establishes
Mobile District maintains the authorized channel; national DQM and district engineering records support field and survey oversight.
What still has to be published
District procurement, agency rules and accountable placement records must show how the state definition is applied to each package.
The federal standard keeps four routes open
USACE's current operations-and-maintenance page lists upland sites, thin-layer placement, the Sand Island Beneficial Use Area and the Mobile Ocean Dredged Material Disposal Site as parts of the federal standard. They are not interchangeable destinations. Sediment suitability, pump distance, plant type, permitted capacity and environmental conditions decide which route is available to a package.
The map makes that logistics problem visible. Thin-layer sites sit alongside the Bay Channel; Sand Island and the ocean site sit beyond the mouth of the bay. Moving the same cubic yard by cutterhead pipeline, hopper dredge or another transport chain changes production, fuel, weather exposure and cost.
Thin-layer placement is an engineered operation
Mobile District describes cutterhead production of 1,500 to 3,000 cubic yards per hour, with a diffuser spreading sediment in 6-to-12-inch lifts under GPS control. Its 2014 framework places work at least 2,500 feet from the channel and rotates sites on a four-to-six-year cycle.
The district also reports modelling in which about 65 percent of placed material dispersed broadly and 35 percent returned to the channel, and says the placed material was less erodible than the native bed. Those are USACE's published findings, not a substitute for contract-specific monitoring. A current package still needs position records, lift checks, material reconciliation and post-dredge hydrography.
Alabama's October rule draws a narrower line
Code Section 33-7-13 takes effect on 1 October 2026. It applies in coastal areas to a person dredging more than 1 million cubic yards in a year and sets a 70 percent beneficial-use requirement. The statute says public-water deposition does not count unless it forms part of shoreline restoration or marsh creation.
The requirement is conditional. The enrolled text ties compliance to available and allocated federal beneficial-use funds and to permitted, approved in-state sites with demonstrated capacity for suitable material. A governor's emergency order can also suspend the section. ADEM and the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources must write the implementing rules.
The same route may carry two labels
USACE calls thin-layer placement an intentional beneficial use within its federal sediment-management policy. The Alabama statute uses a different counting test. Thin-layer placement into public water does not automatically satisfy the state definition merely because the federal programme calls it beneficial; the documented purpose and approved site have to meet the shoreline-restoration or marsh-creation language.
That is not a verdict on the method. It is a contract and evidence issue. Procurement teams will need quantities by destination, the qualifying use claimed for each site, approved capacity, material suitability, federal funding and a fallback route. A single blended beneficial-use percentage will be hard to audit.
A funded marsh cell shows what a qualifying route looks like
Alabama's June RESTORE announcement gives one concrete example: USD 24 million for the first 100-acre Upper Bay wetland cell in a planned 1,200-acre restoration area. The state says suitable material from Port of Mobile berth dredging will create estuarine marsh there.
That funding does not prove that the cell can receive every maintenance sediment or that it closes the annual 70 percent calculation. The next controlling records are the cell permit, design capacity, accepted material envelope, delivery agreement, construction award, actual receipts and the rule that says how those receipts will be counted.
Continue through the topic collections to compare this record with related projects, evidence guides, briefs, articles, reports, and performance records.
