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Jacob Kvasnicka, G. Allen Burton, Jeremy Semrau, Olivier Jolliet, Dredging Contaminated Sediments: Is it Worth the Risks?, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Volume 39, Issue 3, 1 March 2020, Page 515, https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.4679
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In the United States, billions of dollars are spent on environmental dredging projects to remediate contaminated sediments (United States Environmental Protection Agency 2016, 2017; Haggard 2017). A primary goal of such efforts is to reduce risks to human health and aquatic organisms and associated food webs that depend on these waterbodies. Clearly, there is great need to protect at‐risk communities from harm arising from pollution, but it remains unclear to what extent dredging is reducing these risks.
In 2007, the National Research Council evaluated the effectiveness of dredging large‐scale Superfund sites in the Unites States. They were unable to conclude whether dredging alone is capable of long‐term risk reduction, primarily due to shortcomings in monitoring data (National Research Council 2007; Gustavson et al. 2008). This is disconcerting given the many billions of dollars that are spent to remove contaminated sediments. It is a highly questionable assumption that dredging alone is resulting in improved ecosystems and less risks to humans and the environment.
