TINA MARKOE/Courier-Post An Army Corps of Engineers' dredger at Weeks Marine in Camden.

TINA MARKOE/Courier-Post Cutter blades from Army Corps of Engineers' dredgers at Weeks Marine in Camden.

The last time the Delaware River was dredged by five feet, it was the patriotic thing to do.

The year was 1942, and there was no question the channel had to be deepened from 35 to 40 feet to get warships in and out of bustling shipyards in Camden, Philadelphia and Chester.

Now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to drop the depth of the 102-mile channel from Camden to the sea from 40 to 45 feet beginning next year, at a cost of $311 million.

Driving the four-year project is a maritime community that believes the Delaware must be dredged to fight another war: an economic one against other East Coast ports from Boston to Charleston, S.C.

Unless the Delaware River offers a competitive depth, they predict, ships will go elsewhere. And, in time, so will an estimated 30,000 jobs associated with the maritime industry, port officials say.

Opponents contend dredging the river will stir up toxins that could contaminate drinking water, threaten aquatic life and essentially reverse improvements made in cleaning the Delaware.

They also view it as corporate welfare for the five oil companies that dominate the river and which stand to save $40 million a year if the plan proceeds. Dredging the river--at no cost to the oil companies--is no different, opponents argue, than spending tax dollars on a Norwegian shipbuilder at the former Philadelphia Navy Yard, or building glitzy sports stadiums for wealthy teams.

Opponents also are convinced the public is not getting the whole picture. After 45 feet, they say, comes 50 feet--a more realistic depth for a handful of hub ports to handle the next generation of mega-ships.

Maya K. van Rossum, spokeswoman for the Alliance Against the Delaware Deepening, believes the public has been left out of the process, except to pay the bill. "The Army Corps and DRPA (Delaware River Port Authority) are just shoving this through, quietly doing what they have to do to get it done...completely thwarting any public process," van Rossum says.

"We had to beg for a public hearing, and where was it held? Dover, Del., which was not convenient for South Jersey residents, yet they're the ones being dumped on. Even the public hearing was too limited to be meaningful."

Despite concessions from the Army Corps, environmentalists still are challenging its contention that the project will not affect water quality, quantity or fish habitat. Those findings are based on $7 million in testing conducted by the corps. A U.S. Geological Survey confirms the corps' findings on water quality. Meanwhile, environmentalists have little scientific evidence to support their fears.

The backlash is foreign to the corps, which has been dredging the nation's waterways for decades in the name of national defense. But environmental awareness has been raised dramatically since the last major deepening. And as they look to the Delaware as more than a private highway for the shipping industry, residents want proof the river and its underlying aquifer will not be harmed.

Van Rossum says she would settle for a second opinion. She wants the Delaware River Basin Commission to review the project, though it has not agreed to do so. "We have confidence in DRBC's staff," she said. "If they say everything is fine, then environmentally, we'll support it."

While the commission is helping coordinate the project, it says it lacks jurisdiction to formally review the dredging plan because the Army Corps has classified the deepening as maintenance dredging, the routine process of reducing sand and silt build-up in the channel.
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