page_title: Port of New York and New Jersey
section_title: Channels
hierarchical_section_title: Port of New York and New Jersey / Geography / Waterways / Channels
caption_attribution_description: Deepening the w:Kill Van Kull channel to 50 feet. An Army Corps of Engineer dredge brings up debris from bedrock broken up first by dynamite.
context_page_description: The Port of New York and New Jersey is the port district of the New York-Newark metropolitan area, encompassing the region within approximately a 25-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. It includes the system of navigable waterways in the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary, which runs along 650 miles of shoreline in the vicinity of New York City and northeastern New Jersey, as well as the region's airports and supporting rail and roadway distribution networks. Considered one of the largest natural harbors in the world, the port is by tonnage the third largest in the United States and the busiest on the East Coast.
  The port is the nation's top gateway for international flights and its busiest center for overall passenger and air freight flights. There are two foreign-trade zones within the port.
context_section_description: The port consists of a complex of approximately 240 miles (386 km) of shipping channels, as well as anchorages and port facilities. Most vessels require pilotage, and larger vessels require tugboat assistance for the sharper channel turns.
  The Ambrose leads from the sea to the Upper Bay, where it becomes the Anchorage Channel. Connecting channels are the Bay Ridge, the Red Hook, the Buttermilk, the Claremont, the Port Jersey, the Kill Van Kull, the Newark Bay, the Port Newark, the Elizabeth, and the Arthur Kill. Anchorages are known as Stapleton, Bay Ridge and Gravesend.
  The natural depth of the harbor is about 17 feet (5 m), but it was deepened over the years, to a controlling depth of about 24 feet (7 m) in 1880. By 1891, the Main Ship Channel was minimally 30 feet (9 m) deep. In 1914, Ambrose Channel became the main entrance to the port, at 40 feet (12 m) deep and 2,000 feet (600 m) wide. During World War II the main channel was dredged to 45 feet (14 m) deep to accommodate larger ships up to Panamax size.
  In 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers completed a $2.1 billion dredging project, deepening harbor channels to 50 feet (15 m) in order to accommodate Post-Panamax container vessels, which can pass through the widened Panama Canal as well as the Suez Canal.
  This has been a source of environmental concern along channels connecting the container facilities in Port Newark to the Atlantic. PCBs and other pollutants lay in a blanket just underneath the soil. In June 2009 it was announced that 200,000 cubic yards of dredged PCBs would be "cleaned" and stored en masse at the site of the former Yankee Stadium and at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
  In many areas the sandy bottom has been excavated down to rock and now requires blasting. Dredging equipment then picks up the rock and disposes of it. At one point in 2005, there were 70 pieces of dredging equipment working to deepen channels, the largest fleet of dredging equipment anywhere in the world.
  The channel of the Hudson is the Anchorage Channel and is approximately 50 feet deep in the midpoint of Upper Bay. A project to replace two water mains between Brooklyn and Staten Island, which will eventually allowing for dredging of the channel to nearly 100 feet (30 m), was begun in April 2012. The Army Corps has recommended that most channels in the port be maintained at 50 feet deep. Dredging of the canals to 50 feet was completed in August 2016.
  The channels also include bridges that limit the heights of vessels that can use the harbor. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge has a clearance of 228 feet (69.5 m) at mean high water. The Brooklyn Bridge has 135 feet (41.1 m) of clearance, while the Bayonne Bridge has been raised from 155 feet (47.2 m) to 215 feet (65.5 m).
caption: Deepening of Kill van Kull[4]
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