The six-year, $392 million Delaware River dredging project that’s now just 11 miles from the finish line is literally carving out a path for bigger ships and bigger business along Delaware County’s shorefront.

Already 85 percent complete, the dredging work is now targeting the bottom of the river from Chester toward Wilmington, and because of the Delaware River ports’ lower costs and less congestion compared to bigger ports in New York and Baltimore, the local economy is expecting its ship to come in.

“The Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay … projects that the project will generate more than $1 billion of investment in port infrastructure projects,” wrote Katie Colaneri and Jon Hurdle in StateImpact, a reporting project of National Public Radio.

“It will boost cargo volume by 2.5 million tons a year, and add 75,000 direct and indirect jobs to the 135,000 that the port complex already supports.”

“The enthusiasm this project is creating around the globe is evidenced in the increased number of inquiries from all manner of shipping interests,” Maritime Exchange Spokeswoman Beverly Ford said in the article.

Click here to read more about the advantages and challenges the ports face from StateImpact.