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Emerging Issues: Environmental Windows
Emerging Issues
Relevant Links
Environmental Windows Associated with Dredging Operations (PDF) (18 pp, 1.51MB, About PDF)
Economic Impacts of Environmental Windows Associated with Dredging Operations (PDF) (14 pp, 253K, About PDF)
A Process for Setting, Managing, and Monitoring Environmental Windows for Dredging Projects (PDF) (96 pp, 1.25MB, About PDF)
Environmental windows are used as a management practice to eliminate risk of potentially harmful impacts of dredging activities on aquatic resources. Environmental windows are those periods of the year when dredging and disposal activities may be carried out because regulators have decided that adverse impacts associated with dredging and disposal would not exceed critical known or perceived thresholds during these periods.
The first environmental windows were established more than 35 years ago and, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, are applied today to more than 80 percent of all federal dredging projects. The importance of continuing to evaluate the impacts of environmental windows on dredging and dredged material management led the National Dredging Team to include environmental windows as an emerging issue in its 2003 Action Agenda.
