Since the start of the 20th century, over half of global coastal wetlands have been lost, driven largely by coastal development and anthropogenic sea level rise. Key to designing effective marsh restoration projects to prevent further degradation is minimizing short-term ecosystem impacts. One important habitat restoration method currently in use is the placement of dredged sediment on the marsh platform to build marsh elevation. In 2019, the Seven Mile Island Innovation Laboratory (SMIIL) was established as a testbed to advance marsh restoration techniques using sediment dredged from the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway. Since then, a number of sediment placements have occurred at the SMIIL, but the spatial and temporal extent to which these placements affect the surrounding channel biogeochemistry is unknown. We monitored a side cast sediment placement for its biogeochemical impacts to the surrounding water column, and calculated metabolic rates before, during, and after placement to assess ecosystem impacts and function. We find that the sediment placement does drive short-term enhanced net heterotrophy, which persists beyond the signal of enhanced water column turbidity, but that this signal is comparable in both duration and magnitude to that driven by a seasonal tropical storm, suggesting that this type of ecosystem restoration strategy may be a promising solution with minimal long-term ecosystem effects.