Under the DAMOS (Disposal Area 

 Monitoring System) Program, successful 

 capping has been conducted in water depths 

 less than 60 m (196'). With tightly 

 controlled disposal operations, accurate 

 placement of both the material deemed 

 unsuitable for unconfined ocean disposal 

 and the cap material has resulted in a well- 

 defined dredged material mound. The 

 formation of a well-defined dredged 

 material mound, as illustrated by capping 

 operations at the Central Long Island Sound 

 Disposal Site (CLIS), is the primary 

 determinant of successful capping 

 operations (e.g., SAIC 1984b). The 

 dredged material disposal mounds formed 

 at MBDS, Port Gardner, WA, and Elliott 

 Bay, WA disposal sites support the 

 feasibility of capping operations in deeper 

 water. Because of our understanding of the 

 behavior of material as it travels through 

 the water column (based on empirical 

 results of other disposal operations and 

 verified modeling results), we feel 

 confident that similar operational control 

 over the disposal of dredged material in 

 deeper water should result in successful 

 capping. 



(Figure 1-4). From 1990 to 1992, up to 

 2.0 m of dredged material had accumulated 

 west of the buoy location (Figure 1-5). 

 The successful formation of a mound from 

 these disposal activities suggests that the 

 Boston Harbor material will also form a 

 distinct dredged material mound at this site 

 provided that tight control is exercised over 

 disposal operations. Routine monitoring 

 techniques (bathymetry and REMOTS® 

 sediment- profile photography) can 

 determine the areal extent of a discrete, 

 stable deposit quite accurately, thereby 

 allowing NED managers to direct 

 subsequent disposal operations to form a 

 cap over the initial mound. 



The results from monitoring recent 

 disposal operations at MBDS show that a 

 distinct mound was formed at this site 

 during these disposal operations. From 

 1987 to 1992, approximately 836,148 m 3 

 of material dredged from the Boston area 

 was deposited at the "MDA" (formerly the 

 "FDA") buoy (SAIC 1990b, Germano et 

 al. 1993). A bathy metric survey conducted 

 in 1992 detected a mound over a 400 by 

 200 m area (Figure 1-3). From 1987 to 

 1990, a maximum of 0.8 m of material had 

 accumulated to the east of the buoy location 



Deep Water Capping 



