Delaware River dredging: Judge says time to fight plan is long passed

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Delaware River dredging: Judge says time to fight plan is long passed
Nothing 'insurmountable' blocking project, note says

By JEFF MONTGOMERY • The News Journal • January 30, 2010
http://www.delawareonline.com/articl...0334/1006/NEWS

In an unusually swift judicial clarification, a U.S. District Court judge made it clear Friday that she believes environmental criticism cannot stop the deepening of the Delaware River's main shipping channel, and said that "no insurmountable risks" block the way .

Judge Sue L. Robinson made the point in a bold-faced footnote that amended an opinion released Wednesday, clearing the way for an immediate start of the deepening in northernmost Delaware. Other sections would still require a state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control permit review.

Critics immediately branded Wednesday's decision puzzling, with one former state regulator saying the first work could become a "bridge to nowhere" if DNREC rejects the Army Corps of Engineers application for other sections of the $300 million, 102-mile project.

"Just to be clear, the deepening project is one that should be completed consistent with congressional intent," Robinson said in the footnote Friday. "This court does not equate administrative obstacles with insurmountable environmental risks"

She added later: "The time for that fight has long passed." She also noted the immediate work was a "first step," and that DNREC had assured the Corps it would provide a permit decision within a year.

William Moyer, a former DNREC wetlands manager who opposed the project and raised the "bridge to nowhere" concern Wednesday, said he was puzzled by the apparent rejoinder.

"That seems kind of unusual and maybe a little silly," Moyer said.

During courtroom arguments, Robinson made it clear that she was troubled by Delaware's prolonged delays in processing environmental permit applicants for a project that Congress authorized in 1992.

Supporters of the project say that the region's ports need to deepen the river's shipping channel to 45 feet from its current 40-foot depth to remain competitive with other Atlantic coast ports.

Opponents say the project will mainly benefit the region's oil refineries, and can't produce enough benefits to justify taxpayer costs and risks to aquatic habitat and groundwater.

[jackdaniels]

Delaware River dredging concerns run deep
Opponents say environmental balance at risk

By JEFF MONTGOMERY • The News Journal • February 14, 2010



Art Meding's family has fished Delaware's river and bays for generations. They know where shark and big fish called drum are abundant and where fragile underwater clusters of sand worm tubes -- called coral beds locally -- once ran for miles.

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Meding prowled waters in and around the Mispillion and Indian rivers as a child, settling near Milford as pollution crippled the once-vibrant fishery around the Inland Bays. He has watched with frustration as marshland around Slaughter Beach was used for dumping dredge spoils.

But Meding also marveled at the life remaining in the bay, especially spawning areas for huge black drum, and roamed by brown sharks, sand sharks and bottom-browsing fish called spot.

Now, the dredges are coming again, with a massive deepening of the Delaware River poised to begin in the shipping channel used by thousands of tankers to deliver 7 percent of the nation's annual oil imports.

"I would hate to see all this jeopardized by somebody digging up a bunch of sand and silt -- and they're not even sure what's in it -- and then dropping it somewhere just to get rid of it -- covering up the food and the coral beds," Meding said. "The environment is already pretty sensitive out there. It's taken years and years for the fish to rebuild and come back."

Supporters contend that the project will bring bigger ships and more money to the ports of Camden, Philadelphia and Wilmington.

Opponents fear that dredging up toxic muck on the channel bottom could upset the habitats of creatures from bottom-dwelling tube worms to giant sturgeon and bald eagles.

Dredged-up sand and silt could cover worms that feed spot, a crucial link in bay food chains that now support bigger fish. The deepened channel could change river and bay flows that control the water's salinity, possibly threatening efforts to restore oyster beds.

Toxic chemicals in more-urban areas could become suspended in the river itself, ebbing and flowing with tides and causing long-term harm to aquatic life and marsh habitats that support struggling birds of prey.
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http://www.delawareonline.com/articl...0384/1006/NEWS

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In a sharp contrast with officials in neighboring Delaware, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Friday painted the Army Corps of Engineers as "irresponsible" for pushing the Delaware River main channel dredging project without new pollution studies.

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The governor, in his strongest statement yet on the project, also questioned federal plans for air quality protection and spoils disposal in the Garden State.

"The Army Corps is using a double standard, applying tough criteria to protect the environment during the project to deepen the New York-New Jersey Harbor yet failing to provide the same protections to South Jersey's environment," Christie said.

It was the latest bubble in a political caldron kept simmering for decades by the dredging plan.

Pennsylvania's Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell has pushed aggressively for a deeper main channel on behalf of Philadelphia-area business and port interests. Disputes with New Jersey at one point left the Delaware River Port Authority paralyzed and unable to pass a budget. Some information and tests used to support the project were collected during the mid-1990s, during preparations for a 1997 environmental-impact study, New Jersey officials pointed out. Conditions in the river and its varied habitats have changed since then, for better and worse.

New Jersey earlier this week joined an environmental coalition's attempt to block any startup of the more than $300 million project to deepen the channel five feet, to a controlling depth of 45 feet, without more studies, pending an appeals court ruling on a challenge originally filed by Delaware and on the outcomes of two other federal lawsuits.

Delaware declined to support the same stay despite corps actions that amount to an override of state authority on dredging of the first 12-mile section -- called "Reach C" -- between the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.

State officials declined to comment on New Jersey's move on Friday.

more: http://www.delawareonline.com/articl...0325/1006/NEWS

[jackdaniels]

Delaware River dredging to start next week
Project will begin near C&D Canal, head north

By JEFF MONTGOMERY • The News Journal • February 27, 2010



The first stage of a multiyear, $310 million deepening of the Delaware River main shipping channel will start early next week, the Army Corps of Engineers reported Friday.

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Corps spokesman Edward Voigt said that a contractor will start cutting the shipping channel to 45 feet from its 40-foot depth near the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, then move north.

A Norfolk-based company already is at work dredging away silt that has made the current channel bottom shallower than the 40-foot minimum depth along a 12-mile section between the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the canal.

"They'll just go further down," with the dredging pipe, Voigt said. He added that a second unit could be called in to work on the 12-mile first section.

Port and shipping interests said the deeper channel is needed between Philadelphia and the Atlantic Ocean to keep local ports and businesses competitive with others along the Atlantic.

Remaining sections of the 102.5-mile channel will be deepened over the next three years. Work will begin, however, in the shadow of three separate court challenges.

New Jersey and a coalition of environmental groups have sued to block the dredging in two actions filed in New Jersey's U.S. District Court. The environmental organizations also are appealing Delaware's loss of a similar federal court challenge late last month.

Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary Collin P. O'Mara said late Thursday talks are continuing with the corps on an agreement in lieu of a permit on state environmental protection priorities during the work.

A federal judge agreed to let work on the first section start without a formal Delaware underwater construction permit, over state objections that the dredging was entirely inside Delaware and subject to state environmental protection laws.

Critics have charged that the corps failed to meet or ignored a range of environmental protection requirements in pursuing the deepening.

Recent purchase of air pollution reduction credits cleared the way for work to begin on the $310 million project, Voigt said.

Federal Clean Air Act terms required purchases of credits to offset increased pollution emissions during the dredging work. The credits are sold by the ton by other businesses or activities that have reduced or eliminated other types of air pollution.

The corps' pollution credit purchase cost about $3.3 million, and cut off 874 tons of emissions rights at five power plants and factories in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com.