Honga River Dredging Underway Through March 31, 2027

Dorchester County, MD - If you take a boat out on the Honga River this fall or winter, you'll be sharing the water with a dredging crew. Sea Coast Marine Construction started the work on October 10, 2026, and it's set to wrap up on March 31, 2027.

The crew is working around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so boaters could run into the equipment at any hour, even after dark.

Dredging means digging up mud and sand from the bottom of a waterway.

The main machine on the job is a dredge named Scout. It's a cutter-suction dredge, which uses a spinning cutter to loosen material on the river bottom and then sucks it up with a pump.

From there, a long pipe carries the material away. That pipeline runs from the back of the Scout to the spot that has been picked to hold the dredged material.

Boaters will see more than just the dredge. There will be booster pump stations, which help push the material through the pipe, along with several tugboats, a barge with an excavator on it and a small open boat called a skiff that doesn't have a name.

The channel is not closing. Boats can still get through, but there will be less room than usual while the work is going on.

Some parts of the pipeline will be underwater where it crosses the area. Those spots will be marked with red and green buoys.

The dredge pipeline will also have regulatory buoys and flashing yellow lights on it. Regulatory buoys are markers that warn boaters about a hazard or a rule in that area.

Anyone boating near the work is asked to use caution. That goes for when you meet the dredge or a work boat head on, when you come up behind one, and when you pass by.

The dredge and its work boats are listening on VHF-FM marine radio Channels 65 and 16. If you need special arrangements to get through the area, the notice asks that you contact the dredge at least 30 minutes before you get there.