By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, April 26, 2002 (ENS) - The Army Corps of Engineers has suspended a dredging project on the Delaware River after a Congressional review raised questions regarding whether the project is financially justified. Conservation groups, who have opposed the project for almost a decade, called the decision a "victory for common sense conservation."

A contract dredge works in the Delaware River as part of routine dredging to maintain the 40 foot shipping channel. (Photo by Anthony Bley. Three photos and map courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)

"The Corps has suspended work underway," the agency announced this week, "until this information can be reviewed and an appropriate course of action determined."

The Corps has not set a time limit for completion of the review, though the agency's director of civil works, Major General Robert Griffin, has directed that it should be completed as soon as possible.

"The suspension will remain in effect until the questions have been answered," the Corps said. "It is important to note that no actual construction has begun."

The area that the Corps proposes to dredge.

"The Delaware Nature Society is pleased to learn that the Corps has elected to pull the plug - at least for now - on this inadequately researched and inaccurately described project," said Dick Fleming, a DNS board member. "For years, we and others have questioned the accuracy of the Corps' and Delaware River Port Authority's economic conclusions."

Senators Jon Corzine and Robert Torricelli, both New Jersey Democrats, asked the GAO to investigate the cost benefit and environmental analyses on the plan to deepen the Delaware River channel from 40 to 45 feet. The GAO audit is scheduled to be completed next month.

The information already provided to the Corps suggests that the dredging will be a money losing proposition, which could prompt Congress to yank funding from the Delaware Deepening project.

A containerized vessel unloads its cargo at the Packer Avenue Terminal in Philadelphia, with the Walt Whitman Bridge and the city of Philadelphia in the background.

Deepening the Delaware River would generate about 33 million cubic yards of dredge spoils in just the first four years. Another six million cubic yards would be generated each year to maintain the project.

The dredged material is slated to be placed at Broadkill, Port Mahon, Rehoboth/Dewey beaches and Kelly Island in Delaware. Conservation groups have raised concerns that the dredging spoils could smother recently spawned horseshoe crabs on the beaches.

The Delaware Bay is the epicenter of spawning activity for the Atlantic Coast horseshoe crab population. Horseshoe crab eggs support critical staging areas for hundreds of thousands of migrant shorebirds each spring that must replenish fat reserves on long flights from their wintering grounds in South America to their breeding grounds in the Arctic.

Conservation groups warn that dumping dredged materials on beaches could harm horseshoe crabs. (Photo by Bill Hall, University of Delaware, courtesy NOAA)

The Delaware River Deepening was ranked the second worst Corps project in the nation by a March 2000 report, "Troubled Waters," issued jointly by the National Wildlife Federation and Taxpayers for Common Sense. NWF and Taxpayers for Common Sense cite the project as an illustration of the need to subject all Corps' projects of this size and potential impact to an independent review by experts outside of the Corps.

Several pieces of legislation are now pending before Congress that aim to reform the way the Corps plans water resources projects. Subjecting expensive and controversial Corps project studies to independent peer review is among the most critical reforms proposed by the bills.

A cargo ship passes under a bridge along the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, heading north to Philadelphia. The Corps has suspended plans to deepen the canal based on economic concerns. (Photo by Anthony Bley)

Congress will begin debating the various reform proposals over the next several months.

More information on the Delaware River Main Channel Deepening Project is available at: http://www.nap.usace.army.mil/cenap-pl/drmc.htm