Unloading for reloading. An orange shovel transfers dredged muck to shore, and a tracked dozer builds a storage mound, eventually 30 to 40 feet high. Then the Army Corps looks for a customer who needs free fill for construction and trucks it out.
An eyesore for sure but temporary if all goes well
HOMER, Minn. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which controls navigation on the Mississippi River, plans to dredge river-bottom sediment to its riverside Homer dump site south of Winona. Dredging begins next week and will continue to late June, the Corps said. Eventually the Corps hopes to truck the muck to construction sites as fill. The current plan is to dredge 27,000 cubic yards of muck from a three-quarter mile stretch of river for temporary storage at Homer. To make room, 45,000 cubic yards from prevvous dredging was removed over the winter for fill at the Winona Technology Park. Paul Machajewski, the Corps’ material manager, called the Home riverside storage site a arrangement a win-win: “Helping communities develop solutions for their construction fill needs, while building additional storage capacity and maintaining the navigation channel is the goal.”
Earlier tempest
Years ago the Winona County Board attempted to ban dumping in Homer for aesthetic reasons and concern over traffic hazards from trucking. The Corps prevailed, citing its Congressional mandate to maintain a nine-foot deep river channel for barges.