The land extension project at Portier Cove is now entering a new phase, the dredging of unpolluted marine sediments, which will be then deposited off Monaco in a zone chosen for this purpose.
In recent days the ship “Francis Beaufort”, a dredger of 140 metres in length, has been sucking up sediment at the rate of approximately 11,000 cubic metres of a seawater and sediment mixture per hour. Nearly 400,000 cubic metres of sediment will be removed by the end of November.
The dredging phase follows several operations to relocate marine plants and other fauna to protected areas in order to minimise the environmental impact of the project. The next stage, starting in December, will involve the laying of the backfill on which the caisson foundations will rest.