Port of Ilhéus dredging authorized by Brazil’s Environment Agency

IBAMA, Brazil’s Environmental Agency, authorized CODEBA, the Bahia state port authority, to carry out maintenance dredging of the Port of Ilhéus. The license was issued on February 14th. Maintenance dredging is essential to allow ships carrying a greater load to call at the port, making it competitive.

According to the Technical Opinion issued by the agency, “it is understood that execution of the maintenance dredging requested is pertinent”, since it was found that there is no sediment contamination in the port area, there is a low volume of sediment to be dredged and, after maintenance dredging, there will be new monitoring of sedimentation. The last maintenance dredging in the Port of Ilhéus took place between February and May 2014.

The volume of sediment to be dredged in this new maintenance is estimated to be 327,187 cubic meters. Dredging services must be performed with suction and repression dredgers. The material will be disposed of in the existing landfill within the port of Ilhéus’.

IBAMA also suggested that CODEBA should carry out a series of measures to control and reduce environmental impact during the operation. These include removal and transplantation of vegetation cover, campaigns to drive away and remove fish that could be affected, removal of solid residues and permanent monitoring of sedimentation.

CODEBA is now taking the necessary steps to start the bidding process to select the company that be contracted to conduct the maintenance dredging.

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