The Dredge Jadwin, with a crew of around 50 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Vicksburg District team members, departed the Vicksburg Harbor for its annual dredging season along the Mississippi River on May 10.

Vicksburg District commander, Col. Robert Hilliard, and Vicksburg District Deputy District Engineer for Programs and Project Management, Patricia Hemphill, visited with the some of the crew, Captain Chuck Ashley, chief of the Dredging Unit, Paul Richards, and the chief of the Navigation Section, Andy Hall before the morning’s departure. They had a quick breakfast with a discussion of the upcoming season and the many challenges of working on the Mississippi River.

The Jadwin is a 274-foot, 2400 horse-powered dustpan type of dredge capable of dredging as deep as 68 feet. She has a height of four stories and performs dredging duties on the Mississippi River and its ports along the river from May to December when conditions allow.

A dustpan type of dredge uses a suction head the vessel’s width and large pumps to move sediment from the navigation channel through a sizeable floating discharge pipe to an area deemed appropriate by a USACE survey crew.

The Jadwin was built by the Marietta Manufacturing Company in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, on the Ohio River. She was launched on October 30, 1933, and named for Lt. General Edgar Jadwin, chief of engineers at the time of the disastrous 1927 Flood. The Jadwin was converted from steam to diesel-electric in 1985 and the pilothouse, galley and crew quarters were remodeled in 2007.

The USACE Vicksburg District is engineering solutions to the nation’s toughest challenges. The Vicksburg District encompasses a 68,000-square-mile area across portions of Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana that holds nine major river basins and incorporates approximately 460 miles of mainline Mississippi River levees. The Vicksburg District is engaged in hundreds of projects and employs approximately 1,100 personnel.