Ports and Waterfront
Maintenance, Modernization, Remediation, and Environmental Stewardship of the World's Gateways
Anchor QEA partners with ports and harbors owners to develop innovative and cost-effective solutions to challenging projects in waterfront facility, marina, harbor and airport locations.
As a trusted consultant to ports of all sizes for their maintenance, development and remediation needs, we understand the challenges of balancing today’s operations against future planning. This is especially true of cleanup sites, where it may be necessary to address natural resource damages, address habitat restoration, and/or provide public access which may conflict with active facility uses. Anchor QEA is adept at working with owners to find a balanced solution for these complex projects while supporting environmental stewardship goals.
With offices near multiple major ports, our firm routinely provides strategic planning, environmental review and permitting, engineering, and construction management services for seaport and aviation divisions, including:
- Dredging and dredged material management
- State and NEPA environmental review, permitting and compliance
- Site remediation investigation and design
- Sediment, soil, water, and air sciences
- Civil, coastal, environmental, geotechnical, and structural engineering
- Harbor and marina planning
- Waterfront facility development
- Navigation channel and berthing improvements
- Airport environmental studies
- Habitat restoration and landscape architecture
- Construction management services
Anchor QEA's Ports and Harbors-Focused Services
Dredging and Dredged Material Management
Anchor QEA is internationally known for its expertise in dredging and management of dredged materials. Winner of 4 Western Dredging Association “Dredger of the Year” awards, we have completed more than 300 dredging projects for maintenance, new work, and/or sediment remediation, including beneficial use. Our experts teach dredging courses to U.S. and Canadian federal agencies and are involved in developing national and international guidance for many aspects of dredging operations.
Habitat Restoration
Our firm plans and designs habitat restoration and enhancement for marine, estuarine, wetlands, and submerged aquatic and riparian vegetation. This work improves the functional use of natural beaches and fish habitats while serving owners’ environmental stewardship goals and/or the need to provide compensatory mitigation. Our landscape architects regularly integrate public access features to enhance the communities where the restoration work happens, and any of our habitat restoration projects have won state and national awards.
Coastal Resilience Planning and Adaptation Strategy Support
Anchor QEA works alongside our clients to formulate and implement solutions to improve the resiliency of coastal communities in the face of changing climate, sea level rise (SLR), and storm events. We use a practical, field evidence-based approach combined with sophisticated coastal models to predict the vulnerability of the coast and associated infrastructure to climate‐induced changes. Our natural, solutions-based approach has been lauded as environmentally friendly by both agencies and our clients.
Site Remediation
Anchor QEA manages sediment and brownfields cleanup sites for port and harbor clients throughout the U.S. and Canada. We have completed more sediment remediation projects than any other firm in the U.S., involving dredging, capping, enhanced natural recovery, in-situ treatment, and innovative disposal or beneficial use of dredged materials. We work under state of federal (CERCLA, RCRA) cleanup authorities and routinely integrate and achieve habitat restoration and site redevelopment along with the site cleanup.
Environmental Review, Permitting, and Compliance
Anchor QEA staff provide comprehensive environmental reviews and compliance support for air, noise, sediment, soil, water quality and wetlands impacts for waterfront and airport facilities. Our permitting experts prepare documentation to support compliance with federal, state, and local regulations, from local critical areas ordinances and shoreline management programs to multi-jurisdictional environmental reviews and large-scale environmental impact statements.
Environmental Studies, Investigation, and Data Management
Interpretation and management of large environmental datasets is a core service at Anchor QEA. We establish and maintain environmental information management systems, project-specific databases, and automated tools to manage historic and current field investigation data. We also perform specialized environmental studies in support of environmental liability management, liability assessments, real estate due diligence evaluations, and environmental impact assessments.
Navigation and Berthing Improvements
Anchor QEA has helped many ports, harbor districts, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with improving navigation and berthing access. We have expertise in numerical modeling to assess impacts on hydrodynamic flows, sediment transport, vessel wake, and propwash impacts on the environment. As a multidisciplinary consultancy, we are staffed to manage the diverse requirements of the environmental, economic, physical conditions studies, and engineering design of these projects.
Decontamination, Decommissioning, and Demolition
We assist port, industrial, utility, and commercial clients with a wide range of operational and environmental issues—always with the goal of reducing costs and maximizing beneficial use of demolition debris and scrap recovery. Depending on client input, some projects may focus on minimizing risks, while others may focus on cost control and achieving positive return through the asset disposition.
Engineering Design and Construction Management (CM)
Anchor QEA engineers and construction managers work across a diverse set of closely-integrated disciplines to provide risk-balanced bid documents that allow owners to carefully manage construction risks against cost certainty. We typically provide full-service CM support for our designs, integrating our construction managers’ feedback during constructability reviews and value engineering.
Related Projects
Get in Touch
For inquiries about Anchor QEA’s Ports & Waterfront capabilities, please contact: