Top Projects of 2025: Dredged Material Management Facility

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The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District’s Dredged Material Management Facility stands as one of the largest dredged material containment projects in the Great Lakes region. The 42-acre, 1.9 million-cubic-yard facility, located within Port Milwaukee near the Summerfest grounds on the Lake Michigan shore, is designed to safely store contaminated sediment from Milwaukee’s waterways to support habitat restoration and improved water quality.

The $115.4 million project presented significant construction challenges, including tight site constraints requiring precise staging and sequencing between two combination walls. The perimeter system relies on 60- to 85-foot-long, 54-inch diameter king piles paired with PZC18 sheet piles, while 950 soil-mixed panels up to 60 feet long form a cutoff wall using deep soil mixing technology. Aggressive scheduling required all marine work to be completed within a single construction season to avoid compromising soil mixing in freezing conditions.

Value engineering innovations — including precast concrete tiered anchors and advanced cutter soil mixing technology with real-time GPS-guided positioning — reduced risk, cut costs and accelerated the schedule. The project exceeded local hiring goals, created workforce development opportunities and advanced the delisting of the Milwaukee Estuary from the EPA’s Area of Concern list. As of Dec. 31, 2025, the facility was 95% complete, and the project is expected to be completed in late May 2026.

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