Santa Barbara has had a leadership role in the field of environmental concerns for over 50 years and for that reason had a concern of the total environmental considerations involved in the transportation (dredging) of contaminated sediments from their main water supply reservoir, Gibraltar Lake. Silt from the adjacent watershed has been reducing the City's available water supply (equal to 360,000 cu yds) annually with the total of approximately 22,000,000 cu yds of silt currently contained within the reservoir. This R&D Program was sponsored in part by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to evaluate the removal of mercury contaminated silt using an air pump to a containment area and to assist other responsible agencies in evaluating this method when reviewing other similar projects in the future.