Burlington Harbor Dredging - 2026

ECI's Client: City of Burlington

Completion Date: April 2026

Subcontractors: Green Mountain Marine Services

Engineers Construction, Inc. was hired by the City of Burlington to complete a dredging project at Perkins Pier and the College St basin after past low water years has posed a risk to boaters and has occasionally shut the docks down completely. ECI subcontracted Green Mountain Marine Services to bring their barges and long reach excavators to pull the material out of the lake and place it in a de-watering bin, then ECI hauled the material away.  The soil that could be reused was stockpiled for the City of Burlington at a different location and the contaminated soil was hauled to the Casella landfill in Coventry, VT.

To make sure they took out enough material the ECI survey team did an exploratory survey before work began, Green Mountain Marine Services used GPS on their excavator while dredging and then once the work was substantially completed the ECI survey team went out again to make sure they had dug everything to the correct depth.

The Perkins Pier Marina location had approximately 2,033 cubic yards of material taken out giving the whole marina another 3’ of depth for boats and other watercrafts.  The College Street location directly in front of the Echo, Leahy Center had approximately 1,534 cubic yards of material dredged, creating a more consistent slope down into the water and under the Spirit of the Ethan Allen.

A couple of the challenges our crew faced were extremely cold temperatures and wet material.  The extreme cold along with wind chill created thick ice that had to be rebroken frequently so the excavator bucket could get into the water. There were even a handful of days when the weather was so bad that work was put on hold to not damage equipment.  Once the weather got above zero the team fought to get the material dry enough to truck it.  But our team fought through all the challenges, slow days, and wet material and even though they lost about a months’ worth of production they were able to complete the job on time and deliver an end product that the client was very happy with.