The Corps' history in dredging the Delaware River
federal shipping channel dates back to the late 1800s
when the controlling depth of the Delaware River was 18
feet. As ships with deeper drafts evolved, periodic
modifications of the channel took place over the years,
eventually reaching the current 40-foot depth during
World War II. For more than 60 years the Corps'
Philadelphia District has maintained the Delaware River
at this authorized depth, thus allowing the safe transit
of commercial and recreational vessels from Philadelphia
to the Delaware Bay.
In 1983, Congress directed the Philadelphia District to
begin a study to determine if it was in the federal
interest to modify the existing 40-foot Delaware River
main shipping channel. In 1987, the study progressed to
the feasibility phase where we performed extensive
environmental and economic studies. The 1992 final
feasibility report recommended to Congress that the
channel be deepened to 45-feet and that doing so was
environmentally sound, economically justified and
technically feasible. Congress supported that
recommendation by authorizing the deepening project for
construction in 1992.
During the subsequent Preconstruction Engineering and
Design (PED) phase, the Corps completed an economic
re-evaluation and spent over $7 million in additional
environmental analyses, consulting national experts and
conducting studies with the close cooperation of the
appropriate federal and state environmental agencies.
The resulting Supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement was circulated for both resource agency and
public review in January 1997. After an extended comment
period, the document was finalized in July 1997 and once
again circulated for public comment in the same year. In
May 1998, the Corps held a public hearing, and the
transcript from that hearing is a part of the official
record for this permit application. In December 1998,
the Record of Decision was signed, signifying completion
of the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA,
process.
The Delaware River Main Stem and Channel Deepening will
cost approximately $311 million dollars -- with about
two-thirds funded by the federal government and the
remainder by the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority,
the non-federal sponsor. The project is designed to
deepen the existing main shipping channel of the
Delaware River from 40 feet to 45 feet from Philadelphia
Harbor, Pennsylvania and Beckett Street Terminal,
Camden, New Jersey to the mouth of the Delaware Bay.
Although this is a total distance of 102.5 miles, 33
miles (mostly in the Delaware Bay) are already at 45
feet or deeper. The project follows the existing 40-foot
federal main shipping channel alignment. The existing
authorized widths in the straight portions of the
channel, ranging from 400 feet in Philadelphia to 1,000
feet in the bay, will not change. However, 12 of the
existing 16 bends in the channel will be widened for
safer navigation. In addition, the Marcus Hook Anchorage
will be deepened to 45 feet.
To deepen the channel, approximately 16.0 million cubic
yards of material must be removed during initial
construction of the project. Of that amount,
approximately 11.9 million cubic yards of sand, silt,
and clay will be taken from the river portion of the
project -- the area from Philadelphia/Camden to the
Upper Delaware Bay. About 77,000 cubic yards of rock
will also be removed from the Marcus Hook area of the
river.
The material to be dredged from the river portion is
slated for placement at existing federal upland Confined
Disposal Facilities, or CDFs, in New Jersey and
Delaware. While these sites will provide more than
adequate long-term capacity, material placed there will
also be available for beneficial uses in other
locations. For example, several years ago about 150,000
cubic yards of dredged material from the Corps’ National
Park, New Jersey CDF was donated to West Deptford
Township for use in its River Winds riverfront
development project. The Philadelphia Regional Port
Authority funded the cost of transporting the material
to the site.
The remaining 4.1 million cubic yards is primarily good
quality sand from the Delaware Bay. The sand will be
dredged and placed for beneficial use at Kelly Island,
Delaware for wetland restoration and protection (a
similar initiative at Egg Island Point, New Jersey has
been deferred pending availability of sufficient sand).
It also will be placed along the Delaware Bay coastline
for shore protection at Broadkill Beach.
Annual maintenance dredging for the entire project will
increase by approximately 860,000 cubic yards per year
to approximately 4.3 million cubic yards. The current
40-foot channel requires approximately 3.5 million cubic
yards in annual maintenance dredging.
The bulk of dredging will be performed by hopper and
hydraulic pipeline dredges with a bucket dredged used
for rock removal in the Marcus Hook area.
To ensure that construction of the project does not
impact the natural resources of the region, the Corps
has set up pre-construction monitoring to establish
baseline information that the Corps, DNREC and other
state and federal agencies will use to track the ongoing
effects of the project. Data is being collected on
oysters, horseshoe crabs, shorebirds, blue crabs and
sand builder worms. The monitoring will continue during
and after project construction.
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