Guayas River Dredging goes up

“They will be like a sausages“, describes Victor Hugo Yepez director of the Dredge Services of the Navy of Ecuador, referring to the dredging operation in the area bordering the island El Palmar, in the Guayas River.

The geotubes filled with sand from the dredging will form a barrier around the perimeter of the island, oval-shaped and 16 hectares-wide.

The dredging is a mixture of water and sand, but the tubes will be covered with high strength material, allowing leakage of the liquid.

These tubes will form a tray, which will be divided into four quadrants. Its walls will be 2.20 meters in height and will be filled with 296,000 cubic meters of sediment removed to the side of this body of sand that came out on the river, between Guayaquil and Samborondon.

The Navy of Ecuador has eleven months to execute dredging of the east side of the island, which once completed, will, according to Byron San Miguel, national director of Dredging of the National Secretariat of Water (Senagua), allow that channel of Guayas win at least 2 feet deep at low tide and 5.5 meters at high tide.

After eleven months of dredging, comes the second phase of the project, which will last three years and will consist of the removal of 3,500,000 m³ of sediment, which will be used in the hydraulic fill of populated areas of Duran.

Advantages of the ambitious project:

• Will make the watercourse of the river Guayas between El Palmar and urbanization La Puntilla of Samborondón
• Mitigate possible flooding in the area and will reduce the risk of bird overpopulation.

The cost of the first phase of the project will be $ 4,623,000, and the second one, $ 60,000,000.