Can dredging be beneficial to the aquatic ecosystem?
Yes, in some instances, dredging is beneficial to the environment. Dredging can be used to enlarge or create wetlands and provide more habitat opportunities and greater biological diversity within targeted geographic area. In some cases, disturbed lake and river bottoms can be re-colonized once the actual dredging activities have stopped. Dredged spoils can be used to create islands and contoured shorelines which can provide nursery habitat for fish, nesting and staging habitat for waterfowl, and winter habitat for furbearing mammals. In many cases, however, the material removed by dredging (i.e., dredgeate) requires containment or treatment and would not be suitable for wildlife habitat creation. Although dredging can disturb the normal balance and productivity of an aquatic ecosystem, proper attention to mitigation and construction procedures may result in the beneficial effects of dredging outweighing the negative effects.
