The Dredge WHEELER

The hopper dredge WHEELER is operated by the New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is the largest seagoing hopper dredge in the United States.
The WHEELER keeps waterway channels clear from Key West, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas. Although the dredge is maintained in a state of readiness for worldwide operations, it spends the majority of its time operating in the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River, dealing with shoaling problems that occur during high and low water.
The WHEELER is staffed with 56 civil service mariners. The crew is divided into two operating tours, each of 28 men and women alternating two weeks on/ two weeks off. Their working schedule consists of 10 and 12 hour days, including weekends. The dredge operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Every 14 days it docks for fuel, supplies, water, and engine maintenance.

DREDGING OPERATIONS

The WHEELER is a "trailing suction" hopper dredge. That is, it operates much like a giant vacuum cleaner. The uniquely designed with three large drag arms and an impressive pumping capacity. To dredge a channel, the drag arms are lowered over the side to the channel bottom. While the WHEELER travels forward at a speed of approximately 2 knots, the drag arms suck a water and sand mixture, known as slurry, from the channel bottom. The slurry passes through the drag heads and pipelines into the hopper.

The bottom of one of the WHEELER's drag heads.

With all pumps and drag arms operating, the WHEELER fills its hopper with slurry in about 11 minutes; however, pumping continues to allow sediment to displace the water in the hopper and obtain a maximum load of as much as 7,872 cubic yards of sediment.
On a good operating day, the WHEELER can remove 100,000 cubic yards of material, or about 7,000 dumptruck loads, from a project site.
The dredged material is transported from the channel being maintained to an authorized Dredge Material Containment Area, where it is deposited by opening 14 hopper doors on the WHEELER's bottom and allowing the material to fall to the ocean floor.

The POC for this page: Raymond Newman, CEMVN-OD-YM New Orleans, LA 504-862-2050 Raymond.C.Newman@usace.army.mil Page last updated: 11 January 1999