Drove past the new bypass they're dredging near Baton Rouge

I was hauling equipment through Baton Rouge last Tuesday and took a detour to see the new channel work they started. Noticed they're using a cutterhead where a plain suction would have done the job cheaper and faster on that soft bottom. Anyone else think they're over-engineering this stretch?

3 comments

3 Comments

drew551mo ago

That cutterhead argument makes sense based on what I've seen. I had a similar situation with a septic system job where we tried a standard auger first and it kept hitting buried roots and clay layers, switched to a different bit and it cut through clean without any stops. Sounds like the Corps is just saving themselves the headache of pulling up a clogged dredge every half hour.

taylor121mo ago

Yeah, I heard somebody from the Corps say they wanted to future-proof it for bigger barges or something... just seems like a lot of extra money for mud that ain't going anywhere.

carter.casey1mo ago

I gotta push back on "future-proofing" being the reason. I work with marine contractors and that cutterhead isn't for bigger barges. It's because that soft bottom you mentioned is actually layered with stiff clay and buried timber from old cypress stands. I've seen plain suction dredges stall out on that stuff in the Atchafalaya. A cutterhead lets them chew through those layers without stopping to clear a clog every twenty minutes. If they went with plain suction they'd be burning money on downtime and maybe even damaging the equipment. So I think it's less about overkill and more about matching the tool to what's actually down there.