The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Philadelphia District announced it awarded a $9.6 million contract to Cottrell Contracting Corporation of Chesapeake, Va. to conduct dredging of the Lewes & Rehoboth Canal in Sussex County, Delaware.
The contract calls for dredging approximately 90,000 cubic yards of sediment from the Lewes & Rehoboth Canal. Dredging will stretch from the Route 9 (Freeman Highway) Bridge south to the entrance of the Canal at Rehoboth Bay. In 2024, USACE managed a separate contract to dredge the northern portion of the Canal from Roosevelt Inlet to the Route 9 Bridge. Prior to that, the Canal had not been dredged since 2002.
Dredged sediment will be pumped to two dredged material placement sites along the northern section of the Canal (shown in attached map). Dredging can only be conducted between October and March due to environmental windows. Work is scheduled to begin in October 2026 but may start as early as October 2025.
The Lewes & Rehoboth Canal includes a shallow-draft federal navigation channel managed by USACE under the ‘Inland Waterway from Rehoboth Bay to Delaware Bay (DE)’ project. The waterway is utilized by both commercial and recreational users, research vessels, and the Delaware Bay and River Cooperative (DBRC), whose mission is oil spill emergency response/cleanup for events in the Delaware River and Bay.
