Tag Archives: dredging

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Controversy over Delaware River dredging project – Dredging News Online

Living in Roxbury we are just a few miles from the headwaters of the East Branch of the Delaware river. This bearly navigable stream runs through town but as it flows south it becomes the might Delaware streaming with industry.
The controversy concerns dredging the river to increase the opportunity for more traffic and thus advance more commerce to boost regional economies. Here, economy and river ecology seems to be at odds with each other.
Sturgeon, horse shoe crabs, birds, oysters and groundwater will suffer most from dredging of the Delaware river while shipping industry reaps the benefits. Dredging projected to be finished by 2015. Here is an excerpt from
http://sandandgravel.com article and link:

“Voigt said the purpose of the project is to make shipping more efficient in the Delaware River by deepening the river from 40ft to 45ft. The dredging is currently underway between Philadelphia and the bottom of the Delaware Bay. The channel is 100 miles long, and the hope is larger and heavier ships will be able to navigate the channel, he said.

“The main beneficiary of the project is the shipping companies, and more specifically, container and dry bulk shipping companies,” Voigt said. “Oil tankers and companies will also benefit.”

In addition to the environmental risks, some people, such as Director of the New Jersey Sierra club Jeff Tittel, think the project benefits companies while pushing the cost off on the taxpayer.

UD Review said a big concern for Tittel is the dumping of dredge spoils on environmentally sensitive areas and beaches. As the project dredges the river, they pull up contaminated sediment, which affects the land it is displaced on, he said.

“When you take those dredge spoils and put them on the land, whatever chemicals are in them will leach out and get into the groundwater and potentially the drinking water,” Tittel said.

Many environmental advocacy groups in the region, including van Rossum’s Delaware Riverkeeper, have opposed the project from the outset due to the possible harmful effects on the Delaware watershed and the Delaware River wildlife.”

http://www.sandandgravel.com/news/article.asp?v1=17102

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Old Science may be solution to Falling water Levels in Georgian Bay

MP Bruce Stanton encourages his constituents of Simcoe North to Petition the IJC for solutions to Low water levels of Georgian Bay. The IJC is the ‘center for action’ on the solution for this issue. Mary Muter of the Sierra Club of Ontario remarked at the Oakwood Community Centre that ‘the IJC has had $17 million and seven years to come up with a solution’. IJC recommendation to do nothing is not popular among these folks. The US Army Corps of Engineers solution for low water levels for Georgian Bay was conceived 50 years ago. According to Muter, water flows would be slowed by installing underwater sills and repairing erosion damage. As reported by Sarvus, the project costs today would range from $100 to $200 million over 10 years with start up of $3 to $5 million.

Excerpt from Midland Free Press report by Gisele Winton Sarvus on public meeting and solutions to low water levels:

Muter and Scott Warnock [Tay Township Mayor] expressed their dismay with the IJC at last summer’s meeting in Midland that was attended by about 600 people with their ears open for solutions. “They provided no viable options for water level restoration. “It means do nothing and get used to it, folks,” said Muter. An excerpt from local paper A member of the audience asked if the water levels will continue to decline if nothing is done. Muter said that’s exactly what will happen because there are no water regulation systems on Georgian Bay and Lake Huron as there is on Lake Ontario, which has remained relatively stable. Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching drain into Georgian Bay and the five Great Lakes drain, eventually, into the Atlantic Ocean. All five Great Lakes are at lower levels than normal, but lakes Huron and Michigan have lost more water than the others. Human manipulation of the St. Clair River that drains Lake Huron into Lake Erie is one of the areas that is a major cause of the lowering of Lake Huron water, said Muter, and it’s the area where remedial work should start. “The reality is that it is possible to restore water levels,” she said. The St. Clair River has become a drain from Lake Huron because of a century of human intervention that includes mining, repeated dredging, removal of wetlands and creating a steel wall on the U.S. side that causes water to flow faster and causes more erosion that results in an even deeper channel.

http://www.midlandfreepress.com/2013/03/05/action-to-restore-georgian-bay-water-levels-needed-now

This is really something to be excited about! Act now!

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Restore our water levels!

According to the Sierra Club the message heard by commissioners at the summer 2012 International Joint Commission hearings on Great Lakes water levels was “Restore Our Water Levels.” For emphasis,Canadian Commissioner Lyall Knott said, “we hear you loud and clear – restore our water levels.” But the 1,200 attendees at the hearings do not like the recommendation of the IJC for them to ‘get use to lower water levels.’ The many stakeholders – land owners, fisheries, boaters, shippers, recreators, chambers of commerce, local services to name a few – are not satisfied with this answers. Stakeholders and local governments want viable options to address the issue of lower lake levels especially in Lake Huron-Michigan where the water levels are declining far more than the other lakes even if within historic ranges. This is alarming not only to the region but our national interests. Studies have been done ad nauseum on this issue. Dredging is an obvious solution but local funds are not sufficient to undertake this task. Shipping loads dwindle ton by ton as water levels decrease inch by inch and income dollar by dollar. Evaporation is the culprit. The graphs provided by the US Army Corps of engineers show the dramatic decreases and forecasts within the context of historic levels. See for yourself the power of climate and evaporation in the following picture of dry docks compliments of the Sierra Club of Canda.