Thirteen Year Implementation Retrospective on the Dredged Material Management Program (DMMP) in the Northwest

The Dredged Material Management Program is a cooperative interagency program in Washington State for regulating and managing dredged material in Puget Sound, in Grays Harbor/Willapa Bay, and in the Lower Columbia River. Each of the four cooperating agencies (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle District (lead agency); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10; Washington State Department of Ecology; and Washington State Department of Natural Resources) has jurisdiction over dredging and disposal of dredged material. The effort to develop a new interagency program to manage dredged material began in 1985 in Puget Sound. Called the "Puget Sound Dredged Disposal Analysis" (PSDDA) Study, it was developed over a 4.5 year, two-phased cost shared study for $4.5 million dollars. The study brought the federal and state regulatory and resource agencies, environmental interest groups, and the public together through a consensus process. Two overlapping Environmental Impact Statements developed state-of-the-art evaluation procedures, identified environmentally acceptable disposal sites, and developed site-specific monitoring plans to assess the success of management objectives. In 1995 the interagency model for PSDDA was extended to the coastal Washington estuaries in Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay, and in 1998 to the lower Columbia River. The evaluation procedures developed for these two areas was conceptually patterned after the PSDDA evaluation procedures, with modifications that reflected local hydrodynamic conditions and chemicals of concern. Upon completion of the dredged material management manuals for these three diverse water bodies, the interagency program established to implement them became the "Dredged Material Management Program".