Corbett to release $15 million to continue deepening of Delaware River shipping canal

To continue the 103-mile deepening of the Delaware River shipping channel, Gov. Corbett announced Wednesday that Pennsylvania would immediately release $15 million to dredge the next four- to five-mile stretch of the river.

As the project's local sponsor, Pennsylvania footed the $30 million cost of deepening to 45 feet, from 40 feet, the first 13-mile section of channel last year.

The federal government, which is supposed to pay two-thirds of the $300 million tab, has to date ponied up about $4 million for construction.

Now a push is under way to coordinate Pennsylvania and Delaware congressional leaders, the business community, and port interests to persuade the Army Corps of Engineers to "reprogram" unallocated funds from the corps' budget.

Appeals have also gone to Vice President Biden, who is from Delaware.

In a new development, Delaware, which originally sued to block the deepening, now publicly supports it to accommodate larger ships and commerce that will come to the East Coast from Asia after the Panama Canal is expanded in 2014.

The board chairman of the Port of Wilmington recently wrote the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, urging her to fund the channel deepening as vital to growth at the Port of Wilmington.

"The [Delaware] governor has concluded that the project should proceed as planned," Alan Levin wrote Jo-Ellen Darcy, the assistant secretary of the Army. "Federal funds must be included in the President's fiscal year 2012 budget."

President Obama did not allocate money for the project in his fiscal 2011 or fiscal 2012 budgets.

"Our effort will be to convince him that he needs to put it in there, and it's political," said Dennis Rochford, president of the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay, spearheading a multistate effort to secure federal money.

Obama will need Pennsylvania to win reelection, and "he's not going to carry this state" without the support of organized labor - the AFL-CIO, Teamsters, Building Trades, and other unions, Rochford said, after Corbett's news conference.

Flanked by port, business, and labor officials at Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, Corbett said the $45 million from Pennsylvania would pay off in jobs. "It's as good for South Jersey as for Southeastern Pennsylvania," he said. "People work and live on both sides of the river."

"One estimate says that deepening the river channel will create 8,000 to 12,000 direct jobs, and indirectly contribute to another 38,000 jobs," Corbett said.