With another appeal pending, this time in state Supreme Court, the dredging of the Assawoman Canal is nonetheless expected to start within the month.
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control officials began clearing vegetation on the banks of the 3.9-mile canal last week in preparation for the project. Officials should start mechanical and hydraulic dredging by the beginning of October, according to Chuck Williams, DNREC’s project manager.
“At the first two court proceedings we had at the Chancery Court level, the judge said ‘the Sierra Club has no merit, move forward with the project,’” Williams said. “Until we know otherwise, we’re moving forward.”
The Sierra Club, an environmental protection organization, appealed the 2004 permit allowing the dredging in a 2005 hearing before the Environmental Appeals Board. Before the board issued its late-July opinion that ordered a cost-benefit analysis for dredging, however, the General Assembly approved the project in Section 81 of the bond bill passed in June of 2005
“It is the express finding of the General Assembly that the benefits of dredging and maintaining the Assawoman Canal exceed the costs of such project and the Secretary of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is hereby directed to initiate all necessary actions to dredge the Canal,” Section 81 of that bond bill reads.
After the EAB issued its opinion on July 26, 2005, according to Sierra Club attorney Kenneth Kristl of the Mid-Atlantic Widener Law Center, the organization filed suit in Chancery Court to halt the project. That injunction was denied in December and an appeal for summary judgment was denied in a June opinion written by Chancellor William B. Chandler. He cited that EAB opinion from July of 2005.
“The EAB order made it clear that the result of DNREC’s amended cost/benefit analysis had no bearing whatsoever on the environmental effects of the dredging. Moreover, the EAB Order acknowledged that the required cost/benefit analysis would not itself influence whether the dredging would proceed. The decision to go forward with the dredging project, the EAB correctly observed, remained with the Legislature,” that decision reads.
Kristl said that briefs in the new appeal were due this week in Delaware Supreme Court, just as preparation for the project is getting under way.
“Some dredging will probably take place before the Supreme Court has issued its ruling,” Kristl acknowledged.
Clearing of the vegetation is needed for mechanical dredging, which utilizes a machine on top of the banks reaching down into the canal.
That machine will dredge the portion of the waterway from the mouth of the canal at White’s Creek to the Route 26 bridge. The southern portion of the canal, from the bridge to the Assawoman Bay, will be hydraulically dredged by a machine in the water. The material removed from the hydraulic dredging will be pumped to the Muddy Neck Tract near Jefferson Creek, while trucks will transport the fill removed mechanically to Fresh Pond State Park.
Officials plan to dredge about two-thirds of the man-made waterway to make the average depth of the canal 3 feet at low tide, Williams said, allowing larger boats to navigate the shallow canal. The project should take two to three years to complete because officials are only allowed to dredge from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31 to minimize wildlife impacts. Those impacts, along with many other issues, are at the heart of the debate about the dredging that has raged for more than a decade.
“It’s something that needed to be done,” said Gerald Hocker (R-38th). “I’ve been pushing for it.” Hocker has been a supporter of the project for years, along with Sen. George Bunting (D-20th), countering claims by the Sierra Club.
“It’s so shallow fish can’t even spawn in the canal,” Hocker said. “At one time, the Little Assawoman bay had fish, had clams. Those days are over. There is nothing there. It all needs to be maintained. We got to increase the flow, and this will help it.”
Steve Callanen, an Ocean View resident and active Sierra Club member, denounced Hocker’s comments.
“It’s going to destroy wildlife dredging the canal,” Callanen said. “(The dredging project) is motivated by the property owners that feel they can increase their value of their property by getting the canal dredged.”