Our world is home not only to us humans, but to many animals, plants, and other living things around us! And the resources our world owns is what keeps us living, which is why it’s important to learn how to take care of it. However, as technology advances, our industrial needs increase as well.
Of course, we can’t let our marine resources receive any damage coming from marine construction! Fortunately, there are creative solutions for marine construction to preserve the underwater environment. So read on as I show you the different solutions and more information to learn about marine construction and the environment now.
Balancing Ecological and Industrial Needs
Before we look into creative solutions, I want to first give you an example on how we need to balance ecological and industrial needs.
There is a Snohomish River mouth located in Puget Sound, a very busy place filled with a ton of animals and wildlife all year long. Besides wildlife, there are also a ton of vessels coming and going from the ports and marinas, as well as US Navy facilities! This combination of both ecological and industrial use may lead to a few conflicts, which need very careful management.
For example, when a port required upgrading to accommodate even bigger cranes, they needed to have assistance with permitting under the Endangered Species Act. This would require partial demolition of a wharf, which reconstructs wharf decks and drives a lot of new steel piles. As a result, it comes to a nuisance and may cause harm to marine animals.
That’s why such a project requires to perform the proper precautions to prevent any detrimental effects. There was a biological assessment made to analyze any potential impacts of the project on endangered species of the body of water. After garnering all of the best scientific information, the team was able to do their calculations to lessen the injuries and disturbances to help with marine life.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service, along with the National Marine Fisheries Service, have reviewed the analysis and agreed with it. After issuing a statement, the project was continued, though subject to terms and conditions, including working within a work window, among others. These terms and conditions help keep the construction going while preserving marine life.
Such Conditions Need a Creative Solution
Now that you’re familiar with the importance of balancing both marine and industrial needs, what are the different creative solutions we can follow to keep the marine environment safe while improving our industries?
Let’s get back to our example a while ago. Remember, analyses and permits don’t stop there! You’ll be surprised with the many different things that can go wrong during construction or for new projects.
The construction contractor was about to begin with the project only to realize that the subsurfaces require more blows using an impact hammer when installing piles.
This caused them to stop work earlier, avoiding to exceed their daily blow count limit. As a result, there was the concern of an extended construction timeline, which would go past the work window. If this happened, then they’ll need to shut down construction for a few months and return again during the next season, adding a ton of costs, from time to finances!
So they continued acoustic monitoring and would record the site-specific noise levels throughout construction. The underwater noise during pile driving matched the expected levels, they also found out that the noise was a bit less when driving smaller diameter piles.
These acoustic results were reviewed and dissected for further analysis. They found out that the daily blow count limit was enough to prevent injury towards fish species, looking for solutions which helped with construction and overall fish species.
Biologists created a spreadsheet calculator, which gave contractors the real-time management of sounds based on driving various pile sizes. They then created a technical memorandum which explained this approach affected organizations and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Fortunately, this creative solution was accepted and successful, with the contractors allowed to go with higher blow counts as long as they used the spreadsheet calculator carefully.
Wrapping It Up
Marine environment is just as important to save as when on land. Without the waters and wildlife living within it, we won’t be blessed with all the amazing technologies and resources! That’s why we should be knowledgeable and raise awareness on how we can save it, may it be as a regular citizen or the whole industry.
I hope this article on the creative solutions for underwater environment and marine construction helped you out! So don’t wait any longer and start studying more about these from organizations like the Melbourne Commercial Diver SouthernDivers now.
If you have any questions or want to share any more information on marine construction and wildlife, then comment below. Your thoughts are much appreciated!
