By EILEEN STILWELL
Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN -- Frustrated by the failure of the Delaware River Port Authority to deliver on the promise of funds to dredge the Salem River, the South Jersey Port Corporation voted on Tuesday to cover a portion of the cost until May 23.
The commissioners voted to borrow $2,399,000 from the unspent portion of a 1993 bond issue rather than run the risk of losing $6.7 million for the project from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The $6.7 million in federal funds is part of $15 million in federal water projects for New Jersey in 1994's budget.
The loan essentially is a paper transfer to cover the gap between the deadline for local matching funds and the DRPA's next meeting on May 17.
The Port Corporation, which operates Beckett and Broadway terminals in Camden and has jurisdiction over Salem, cannot afford the entire local share by itself. If the DRPA fails to provide the required matching funds by federally set deadlines, the federal funds will be forfeit.
The project, on the corps' agenda for five years, was endangered last week when the DRPA failed to appropriate money to deepen the Salem River channel to 16 feet, as promised in October.
"We're under a lot of pressure," said Frederick F. Fitchett, counsel to the South Jersey Port Corporation, which has a lease with an option to buy the Salem Municipal Pier. He said that the chance to deepen the channel would be lost because a federal freeze on such projects takes effect July 1.
According to several sources, the DRPA is under pressure from Penn Terminals, a private pier in Chester, Pa., not to fund the Salem Port because it would compete for cargo from Bermuda and the Caribbean. Pennsylvania State Sen. F. Joseph Loeper represents Chester and is a DRPA commissioner. Neither he nor his frequent proxy on the board, David Woods, could be reached for comment.
