Lake Lorraine Restoration

C&M Dredging performed an environmental restoration dredging project to restore water quality and depth to Lake Lorraine in Leesburg, FL, removing 53,000 cubic yards of silt and muck from the 10-acre lake. The core challenge: every bit of that material had to be dewatered, dried, and loaded for transport on an adjacent site less than one acre in size.

To accomplish this, C&M used an 8-inch swinging-ladder Ellicott dredge to pump material to the dewatering site, where an automated chemical-dosing system introduced polymer so the material rapidly dewatered in geotextile tubes. Over four months, C&M cycled 75 geotextile tubes in real time — eight per cycle — as dredging continued. Material was dried and loaded into trucks for beneficial reuse within three days of being pumped into the tubes, and reduced in volume by 50% from dredged to disposed.

The biggest value to the client: C&M coordinated the entire operation on a minimal staging and loading site that would normally demand mechanical dewatering or belt presses — in less time and at less cost. By pairing geotextile tubes with industry-leading chemical dosing and automation, C&M delivered faster and cheaper than conventional small-footprint dewatering methods.