BREWER – A major part of Cianbro’s redevelopment of the old Eastern Fine paper mill into the Eastern Manufacturing Facility, which will employ about 500 people starting in April, involves dredging the Penobscot River for a deep-water bulkhead.

The dredging began last month and will stop this week to avoid adverse impacts on fish, including short-nosed sturgeon and Atlantic salmon, Tom Ruksznis, project manager for site development, said Tuesday.

“We’ll stop dredging, per the permit requirements, Thursday and will resume Aug. 1,” he said.

Cianbro Corp., a Pittsfield construction company, is changing the former paper mill into a facility to construct building modules, or prefabricated, self-standing building skeletons.

Cianbro was awarded a multimillion-dollar, 15-month contract in October to build modules for a large oil refinery expansion project in Texas.

Dredging the river is required to make a channel deep enough to handle the heavy barges that will be used to transport the modules, which can be as tall as five stories and weigh up to 1,200 tons.

Most of the recent dredging was done from the riverbank using two huge cranes, but onlookers should expect to see watercraft used during the dredging next fall, Ruksznis said.

The dredged materials were used as fill on-site.

The riverside bulkhead, comprised of nine steel sheet pile cells pounded into the riverbank, is essentially complete.

“We’ve got the parts and pieces all in place. We’re just working on welding them together,” Ruksznis said.

The pier will be done in a couple of weeks, he said.

The refurbishing of the historic administration building should be complete in six weeks, and supplies for the modules are already arriving at the site, Ruksznis said.

“The first load of pipe came in today,” he said Tuesday. “The rest of the work is moving along as scheduled.”

There are now between 140 and 150 employees working at the site daily. Some are in training and others are working on the redevelopment, Ruksznis said. By mid-March and early April, employee numbers should start to increase, peaking in the fall when they hit about 500, he said.

“As soon as we receive enough materials, people will start assembling,” Ruksznis said.

nricker@bangordailynews.net

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