The government is dredging the principal ports of the country, including those at Haina, and the tourist ports of Puerto Plata and Santo Domingo. The Navy has been entrusted with the work that requires the renovation of two old dredgers and the purchase of a new one. Vice Admiral Geraldo Santana Solano, chief of the Navy, is supervising the repair of the two old dredges, Quisqueya and Hispaniola. A new one, purchased at a cost of US$1.1 million by the government, is at present working in the port of Puerto Plata to make an adequate draught for the berthing of large cruise ships. The new dredger is named Puerto Plata. The work is expected to give the port of Santo Domingo a draught of 38 feet and Puerto Plata’s will also go from 14 feet to the same depth. The Navy chief says that with the new equipment they expect to be able to maintain the ports by dredging them every six months.
A report on the work by Geraldino González, published in the Listin Diario, states that the port of Puerto Plata had not been dredged for 21 years. The director of public relations for the Navy, Captain Rafael Ortiz Castillo, says that the accumulated sediment measures over 400,000 cubic meters.
The new equipment permits faster and more efficient dredging as it is capable of loading several tonnes of mud and sediment on board, which is then taken some seven kilometers away from the coast and dumped in waters with a depth of 1,600 meters.