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| A heavy equipment operator shoves a huge chunk of reinforced concrete off the barge — The Bay Net photos and video by Sean Rice |
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) arranged to ferry a crowd of television and print new reporters miles out into the Chesapeake Bay Monday morning to watch a heavy equipment crew strategically dump tons of concrete slabs into the water from a football field-sized barge.
While it may sound like a case of high-profile littering, the deposit on the bay floor 35-feet below actually does much more good than harm, providing a cavernous habitat that fish will love to call home and an optimal fishing spot that anglers and fishing boat captains will mark on their maps.
The tons of concrete deposited Monday morning were removed from the Virginia side of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge during the current bridge replacement project. The Wilson Bridge connects to I495 in D.C.
It would have been tens of thousands of dollars cheaper for the bridge demolition crew to dump the debris in a conventional dumping location on shore, but DNR officials came up with the extra funds to add the concrete slabs to two barges already sitting on the bay floor- one that accidentally sunk and another that was intentionally sunk right nest to it.
The Bay Net took the excursion on the “Edith Rose”, with Captain Eddie Davis, of Davis Sportfishing, at the helm.
See these two accompanying videos and slideshow for footage of this unique event.