Craney Island Dredged Material Management Area

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Craney Island Dredged Material Management Area 1 of 4

Craney Island Dredged Material Management Area (CIDMMA), also known as Craney Island, is the “Jewel in the Port of Hampton Roads.” Since its construction in 1957, Craney Island’s centralized location provides a low-cost placement option for material dredged from Hampton Roads navigation channels, as well as from private dredging projects.

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Large dump trucks move material around the Norfolk District’s Craney Island Dredged Material Management Area. The area is a 2,500-acre confined dredged material disposal site located near Norfolk, VA. Plans for the site were developed in the early 1940s to provide a long-term disposal area for material dredged from the channels and ports in the Hampton Roads area. 2 of 4

A dump truck hauls dredge material from one section of the Craney Island Dredged Material Management Area to another on Feb 12, 2008. Thev area is a 2,500-acre confined dredged material disposal site and offers an economically feasible upland placement area for local navigation projects.(U.S. Army photo/Patrick Bloodgood)

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Portsmouth students plant grasses at Craney Island 3 of 4

PORTSMOUTH, Va. -- Students from Portsmouth's I.C. Norcom High School survey the wetland grasses they planted on the Norfolk District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Craney Island Dredged Material Management Area here April 28, 2016. The district's STEM team partnered with the Elizabeth River Project's "Wetlands in the Classroom" program, which allows students to grow wetland plants in their classroom and then transplant them to a local area. (U.S. Army photo/Kerry Solan)

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Fossil Shell Dredging 4 of 4

PORTSMOUTH, Va. -- The Craney Island Dredged Material Management Area here is a temporary home for thousands of cubic yards of dredged fossil shell being dredged from Tribell Shoal in the James River. On July 8, the site began storing the shell, which will be used for the construction of six oyster reefs for the Craney Island Eastward Expansion project. Construction of the $3.6 million environmental restoration project is set to begin in August of this year. Reefs will be built in Hoffler Creek, Baines Creek, Blows Creek, the Lafayette River and two in Gilligan’s Creek.

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Plans for the site were developed in the early 1940s to provide a long-term disposal area for material dredged from the channels and ports in the Hampton Roads area. Hampton Roads, including the ports of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Newport News, and Hampton, comprises Virginia's greatest port complex.

Hampton Roads is generally recognized as the southernmost boundary of the Boston-New York-Washington industrial, commercial, residential, and recreational complex. Commercial, agricultural, and industrial development in the Hampton Roads area, along with the movement of naval vessels, is dependent upon maintaining project depths in the Hampton Roads channels.

Prior to and during World War II, dredged material removed from these channels was primarily disposed of in open water sites. As these open water sites neared capacity at the end of the war, Congress authorized a study to determine a more permanent and lasting means for disposing of dredged material from the Hampton Roads area.

As a result, development of the Craney Island Disposal Area was recommended and approved by Congress under the River and Harbor Act of 1946. Actual construction of Craney Island was completed in 1957. Since that time, this site has received maintenance, private, and permit dredged material from numerous dredging projects in the Hampton Roads area.