Gallub already has plans for a substantial commercial development on the Camden County property, in Bellmawr.
The furor is "based on misinformation that's being spread around," Gallub said. He pledges that the site will remain available to the river's maritime industry.
State Sen. Stephen M. Sweeney (D., Gloucester), whose district includes the Logan site, joins others who fear that Gallub will use dredged material from the New York port and the Raritan River to ready the site for more commercial development.
If the site is reserved for Delaware River maintenance dredging, it will serve the 41 facilities on the river that accept ships and barges for 15 to 30 years, said Dennis Rochford, president of the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware Bay and River, a business trade association.
"If that site is not available for Delaware River dredging, it would increase costs, make our ports uncompetitive, and jeopardize thousands of jobs," Sweeney said.
Rochford said the current cost of $20 to $25 per cubic yard would soar to $75 or more if the spoils have to be hauled to distant, hard-to-acquire sites. An estimated 350,000 cubic yards are dredged annually from around the river's piers, docks and water inlets.
The dredging involved is not the long-debated deepening of the Delaware River from the current 40 to 45 feet. It is the routine maintenance dredging around seaport terminals, shipyards, refineries, the Navy's inactive fleet piers and municipal water inlets.
These areas silt up - rapidly in times of heavy rainfall - and have to be dredged.
Sweeney said he would use his influence as Senate majority leader and Gloucester County freeholder director to preserve the site for maintenance dredging on the Delaware River.
