The boss of
Barbers Point
A 500-ton dredge is the
By Peter Wagner
muscle behind the harbor's
$14 million expansion
Star-BulletinIt lumbered off a barge at Barbers Point Harbor a year ago, a greasy 500-ton behemoth come to take a bite out of the Ewa Plain.
Behold the "Delaware Valley," the biggest dredge in Hawaii and the boss of Barbers Point.
The huge machine, shipped from New Jersey last September by contractor Healy Tibbitts Builders Inc., is the muscle behind a state Department of Transportation project to expand Barbers Point Harbor.
The $14 million project, to add about 15 acres of water to the harbor, is nearing completion in February.
The job will lengthen an existing pier by more than three football fields, allowing more cargo traffic in the fledgling harbor.
The state is also spending $1 million to upgrade lighting at the entrance and alongside the harbor to enable 24-hour operations.Dragging a huge bucket at the end of a thick steel cable, the Delaware so far has dredged nearly a million cubic yards of material -- coral and limestone the state hopes to sell.
Plodding along on two hydraulic "shoes" each measuring 168 square feet, the monster drags a bucket big enough to back a car into.
Each mighty scoop takes away 18 cubic yards of material.
The Delaware last week was shut down for maintenance, sitting quietly among the hills of limestone it created around the harbor.
Not everyone is awed by the muscle-bound dredge, with its 175-foot crane and 18-yard bucket.
"Anything under 30 or 40 yards is small," said Edsel L. Price, a veteran machinist brought out of retirement in New Jersey to oversee the Delaware.
He leaned over and made his point with a glob of tobacco juice.
"It's no harder to operate than any crane," he said. "The principles are the same, large or small."
