14_ 



The largest consumer of the processed lumber was the ship building industry 

 occupying much of the shoreline below the first falls. Large, two- and three-masted 

 sailing ships were painstakingly assembled and launched from the banks of the river during 

 most of the 19th cenmry (Figure 2-3 A). The USAGE excavated the first navigation 

 channel in the 1 890s to provide sufficient maneuverability for the large sailing ships built 

 at these boat works. In addition, the larger, coal-fired steam ships carrying raw materials 

 and goods from the town of Yarmouth to market in Portland or abroad required passage. 

 Over time, the increasing demand for larger ships and the development and widespread use 

 of railroads along the coast of Maine resulted in the decline and collapse of the ship 

 building industry in Royal River. 



The Great Depression, business competition, and diminishing dependence on the 

 water resources evenmally led to the decline of industry along the banks of the Royal 

 River. The estuary provided a subsistence level shell fishery for the people of Yarmouth. 

 A thriving fish cannery replaced the boat works on the banks of the river. From 1910 to 

 1979, tons of sardines and other fin fish harvested from Casco Bay and the Gulf of Maine 

 were brought upriver by trawlers and skiffs on a daily basis. With only one factory 

 remaining, the working Yarmouth Harbor of the 1800s was replaced by a quaint town 

 landing used more for recreation than commerce (Figure 2-3B). 



Although the waters of Royal River no longer carried timber and the by-products of 

 industry downstream, the river did continue to transport sediments from its watershed area. 

 Due to the depositional environment within the river, normal sedimentation processes 

 would incorporate this sand, silt, and clay into deposits along the banks and at the mouth 

 of the river, evenmally filling in the channel dredged in 1890. Maintenance dredging of 

 the federal channel occurred several times between 1890 and 1960 to facilitate the 

 movement of fishing boats and their catches upriver to the cannery. 



As of the 1990s, sediment had partially infilled the Royal River once again. The 

 river was becoming too shallow to support draft requirements of the recreational fleet using 

 the marinas and anchorage area in Yarmouth Harbor. As a result, the USAGE planned a 

 maintenance dredging project to remove the excess sediment from the navigational charmel 

 and anchorage area for the fall of 1995. 



Waterways scheduled for maintenance or improvement dredging are surveyed to 

 establish accurate depths (bathymetry), and the sediments to be excavated are sampled and 

 analyzed. The bathymetric survey of an area allows for the calculation of "in-place" 

 volumes of material to be removed from a riverbed in order to achieve a specified channel 

 depth. Sediments are collected to characterize the physical and chemical nature of the 

 various layers of material for dredged material classification (UDM versus GDM). If the 

 bottom is composed of mud or sand, a series of cores are usually collected to provide a 

 deep cross section of the subject sediments. 

 The Portland Disposal Site Capping Demonstration Project, 1995-1997 



