Bush Promises a Deeper Columbia River Channel

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, August 16, 2004 (ENS) – President George W. Bush has announced his support for a project to deepen 104 miles of the Columbia River channel. The President said he has asked Congress to add $15 million to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' budget to jumpstart the project, which will allow larger ships to access ports on the river. Critics say the economically wasteful and environmentally harmful project would roll back years of salmon habitat restoration.

"If you want more vibrant trade, if you want more navigable rivers, if you want busier ports, we need to deepen this channel," Bush said Friday during a campaign stop in Portland, Oregon. "We need to make it deeper, and so that is what we are going to do. The engineering work is already underway, and they will start moving mud next year."

The plan calls for dredging and deepening the channel from 40 feet to 43 feet from the mouth of the river on the Pacific to Portland and on to Vancouver, Washington.

About 40 percent of the nation's wheat exports are transported down the Columbia River. Bush said the deeper river would allow cargo ships to load 300 additional containers or as much as 6,000 extra tons of grain.

Supporters of the plan say more than 80 percent of vessels in transPacific trade are constrained by the current depth of the channel.

President George W. Bush pledged his support for the dredging project during a campaign stop at the Port of Portland, Oregon. (Photo courtesy White House )

"I am not the kind of guy that likes to stand up and say, this is going to happen, and it does not happen," Bush said. "I am the kind of person who says, when it is going to happen, it is going to happen."

The news was cheered by local officials, who fear Portland's port is suffering from the channel's inability to handle larger ships.

Funding will come from several sources besides federal appropriations - the Oregon and Washington state governments, and local sponsoring ports including Portland and St. Helens, Oregon, and Kalama, Longview, Vancouver and Woodland, Washington.

The deeper channel will keep shipping business in the Pacific Northwest, business that would be lost without the deepening project. In the past month, two of the three major container shipping companies that use the port have said they will stop calling on Portland this year.

But critics note that Bush's support for the project is a reversal in policy and they contend the President is using the project for political purposes -to attract votes.

Since taking office, the President has moved to rein in appropriations for new Corps construction projects and did not include money for the project in his most recent budget proposal to Congress.

The Port of Portland, Oregon (Photo courtesy Port of Portland)

According to the Corps, the dredging will cost at least $150 million, take two to three years to complete and return a benefit of $1.66 for every $1 spent on construction.

But the agency has a history of overstating the economic benefits of its projects - a key reason the Bush administration cited in its decisions to halt spending for new Corps projects.

"The economic case for the Columbia River dredging project has not been made," said David Moryc, Lower Columbia River coordinator for American Rivers. "The Corps' own experts are concerned that benefits of the project will flow only to foreign owned shipping conglomerates with no guarantee of benefits for the Northwest."

Moryc says the Corps did not analyze the cost of dumping seven to nine million cubic yards of dredge spoils at the deep water ocean site that is home to a $20 million annual commercial crab fishery important to local lower Columbia River communities.

Dredging and disposal operations will also negatively impact shallow water wetlands and tidelands critical to salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act, environmentalists say, and will exacerbate existing water quality problems by revealing and re-suspending pollutants into the water.

"The region has been working together to restore the Columbia River estuary for salmon and wildlife for years now," said Moryc. "We simply cannot roll back these efforts by destroying essential salmon habitat with an economically wasteful and environmentally harmful project."

The proliferation of massive container ships has prompted calls for deepening of the Columbia River channel. (Photo credit unknown)

The federal government is committed to restoring and protecting wildlife habitats in the river's ecosystem, Bush said, and is exploring "good uses" for the sand dredged from the bottom of the river.

"All of these efforts will help us meet a great goal, to leave the Columbia River ecosystem in better shape than we found it," the President told the Portland audience. "I am confident we can achieve that goal."

Last year more than 32 million tons of cargo worth some $15 billion traveled through the Columbia River ports.

Local officials estimate some 40,000 local jobs are dependent on Columbia River maritime commerce.