One of Pinellas County's borrow sites, or the area from which sand is dredged, is the Egmont Channel Shoal.  This is the large sand bar offshore of the entrance to Tampa Bay, and to the north of Egmont Key.  The shoal has been either dredged with a bucket or cutterhead dredge. A bucket dredge is essentially a floating barge with a bottom opening bucket at the end of a crane.  To excavate material, the bucket is lowered into the sediment, closed, then raised to the surface.  The closed bucket is then positioned over a scow, or sand barge, and opened, placing the dredged material into the scow. The cutterhead suction dredges remove sediment from the seafloor with a rotating cutterhead and pump it into scows.

The bucket dredge “Atlantic” of Norfolk Dredging Company that was used on the project.

Bucket dredge loading scow.

The loaded scows are pushed to the beach project area with tugboats. Once offshore of the beach, the scows are hooked up to an unloader that pumps the sand through a submerged pipeline to the beach.

Scow being pushed by a tug.

Unloader "Vicksburg" prepares to unload a scow.

The Egmont Shoal is located about 3 miles due west of Ft. DeSoto Park.  This sand shoal has been dredged numerous times in the past to place high quality beach sand on the beaches of Pinellas County.  The sand meets stringent state environmental criteria. This borrow area is located far enough offshore that dredging of the shoal will not affect waves that reach the shore, and will not cause erosion of the shoreline. There are no reef or hardbottom communities in or near this borrow area that will be impacted by dredging activity.

1990 Sand Key Phase II Nourishment.

The above map identifies the Sand Key project area in relation to the borrow area.

Construction equipment on the beach. During construction, a submerged pipeline runs from the unloader to a landing point on the beach. Upon arrival of a scow, the scow is unloaded and by by pumping sand in a slurry of sand and water to the beach. Then, beach construction proceeds to the north by adding additional pipeline along the beach. This pipeline remains on the beach during the construction of each shoreline section.  Next, the pipeline is “flipped” and nourishment proceeds to the south. Once the entire beach section has been nourished, the landing point and pipeline are demobilized and relocated to construct the next section. During construction, temporary sand ramps are maintained over the pipeline at regular intervals to provide safe public access to the Gulf and newly widened beach.

Renourishment construction at Upham Beach, July 2004.

Pipeline on the beach during July 2004, Long Key renourishment at Upham Beach.

Above and Right: Sand being pumped ashore at Upham Beach, July 2004.