Dredging

RE THE RECENT letter "Make N.J. pay in dredging dispute": Great, the writer agrees with Gov. Rendell that he should shut down the PATCO high-speed rail line and the bridges in order to force us into submission. Very, very neighborly of you. Maybe you can extend an even more neighborly gesture by agreeing to have some of that sludge dumped in YOUR backyard. Just so you know, and living way out there in Harrisburg you might not, but Pennsylvanians use those bridges and that train as well.

DEAR GOV. Corzine: I represent a substantial portion of the area along the Delaware River, including Tioga Marine Terminal. I believe as you do that our ports are crucial to the economic futures of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I urge you to help break the deadlock over the Delaware River dredging issue. Dredging to 45 feet will allow ports to accommodate larger ships and compete with ports in other sections of the United States. Failure to dredge will force companies to move to other ports.

Plans for dredging a deeper shipping channel in the Delaware River - touted as a key to a competitive Philadelphia port - are under fire from environmentalists, who yesterday called the $300 million project a waste of money and "environmental roulette. " "This project is going to contaminate our water with toxins like mercury, lead and PCBs. It's going to threaten our drinking water," said Maya K. van Rossum, of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, at a rally near City Hall. "Dredge No More, Army Corps," chanted 15 members of the Alliance to Dump the Delaware Deepening Project outside the Wanamaker Building headquarters of the Army Corps of Engineers.

IN HIS LETTER responding to my stance on the dredging issue, Rick Bauer forgets to mention that Pennsylvania has agreed to take 75 percent of the sludge from the project. That is more than a fair amount for a project that would benefit both sides of the river. The last time I checked, both states have ports. While accusing me of being "unneighborly," he fails to take into consideration that New Jersey reneged on a promise to Pennsylvania. Apparently he thinks that Pennsylvania should just accept the inexcusable conduct of the Garden State.

Pay dirt. That's the type of dirt this region will see when the dredging of the Delaware River main channel to 45 feet is completed. Each day, the Delaware River provides ships laden with myriad products access to the region's front doors. With a deeper channel and the use of economies of scale, ships will be able to carry more cargo on the Delaware. Businesses and consumers will have access to additional products resulting in added business and prosperity for the region. But, as evidenced by your editorial (Sept.

In what could be another blow to the long-delayed deepening of the Delaware River, U.S. House and Senate budget negotiators have restricted an annual federal appropriation for the project, seen as a boon to the region's economy and ports. But Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.) and Pennsylvania port officials said yesterday that the measure would not block the dredging from the current 40 feet to 45 feet once the Army Corps of Engineers decides to begin. The appropriations bill still must be approved by the full House and Senate.

W. Russell G. Byers (column, July 27) was correct to state that dredging the Delaware River was potentially a "fabulous idea. " From the standpoint of the benefits it will bring to residents, communities and businesses, there are not three problems, there is only one: Byers' belief that this project might be a fabulous idea. A 45-foot main channel will be a boon to businesses and residents alike. The business perspective is simple to grasp. A deeper channel means more cargo can be carried on one ship.

Federal agents seized boxes and documents this week from two Hazleton area companies with contracts to transport dredge material from a Navy pier on the Schuylkill in Philadelphia. Authorities, including agents from the FBI's Scranton office, raided offices of Fort Mifflin Reclamation Associates Inc. in Kingston near Wilkes Barre, and Hazleton Creek Properties L.L.C., Hazleton, on Tuesday. Fort Mifflin Reclamation won a $21 million contract in 2006 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to haul 500,000 cubic yards of sediment to Hazleton as fill for abandoned mines, said Corps spokeswoman Sarah Rivette.

Here is a tale of coincidence and miscommunication that cost the township of Mount Holly money and aggravation. Last year, Mount Holly officials noted that the water in the Rancocas Creek, as it runs through the county seat, was no longer actually flowing but slowly choking through a waterway obstructed with a tenacious garble of muck, natural detritus, rusted shopping carts and automobile tires. In December 1987, the council decided to use $150,000 of a $300,000 Small Cities Grant - available through the Community Development Block Grant administered by the state for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - to dredge an "unsightly" half-mile stretch of the Rancocas Creek.

RE YOUR RECENT editorial on the Delaware River dredging proposal: The only childish behavior is on the part of Gov. Rendell. He is holding the tollpayers' money hostage until New Jersey agrees to an incomplete plan to dredge (most of the toll-paying public comes from New Jersey). There is no evidence that dredging will cause a significant increase in business. Should there be an increase, chances are that it would benefit the record-profit-making oil companies. Why don't they pay for it?

It was a lovefest among Pennsylvania elected officials, Democrat and Republican, on the banks of the Delaware River on Tuesday. Gov. Corbett and labor, business, and government leaders gathered at Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia to celebrate the continued deepening of the Delaware River's 103-mile main shipping channel that began in March 2010. The remaining legal challenge to the project, by New Jersey and some environmental groups, was tossed out by a federal appeals court last month.

The U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Water has approved nearly all of President Obama's request to finance the disputed project to deepen the Delaware River's main shipping channel to 45 feet. The subcommittee's report, released Tuesday, includes $29.45 million for the project. Obama had requested $31 million. Digging the river channel five feet deeper has been debated for nearly three decades and is supported by a bipartisan effort of members of Congress in Pennsylvania and Delaware, governors of the two states, and business and labor leaders.

With a project vital to the Philadelphia port's future at stake, it's good to see that at least along the Delaware River, politics ebbs for some at the water's edge. Thanks to bipartisan efforts at both the state and federal level, nearly $63 million likely will flow over the next two years to advance the five-foot deepening of the river's 102-mile channel. The budget that President Obama announced Monday contained $31 million toward the work being directed by the Army Corps of Engineers - a landmark dredging effort that will enable bigger ships to reach the docks in the city and along the Camden waterfront.

President Obama's new budget, to be submitted to Congress Monday, includes $31 million for continued deepening of the Delaware River navigation channel, two members of Congress said Sunday night. Supporters say deepening the 102-mile channel by five feet will allow bigger ships - and greater commerce - between Philadelphia and Camden and the Atlantic Ocean. Pennsylvania Sen. Robert P. Casey and Rep. Robert A. Brady, both Democrats, said they had learned of the decision, which was to be made public Monday.

It's official. President Obama's proposed $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2013 includes $31 million for the Delaware River main channel deepening from 40 feet to 45 feet. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Monday posted details on its website of the Corps' $4.73 billion civil works spending plan for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. "This project has been a true regional and bipartisan effort," said Dennis Rochford, president of the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay. The announcement followed last Tuesday's news that $16.9 million was in the Army Corps 2012 work plan, and would be used to deepen the shipping channel five more feet between Penn's Landing and Essington, starting in early August.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will allocate $16.9 million this year to deepening, by five feet, the Delaware River's main shipping channel. The announcement, expected to be published on the Corps' website as early as Tuesday, represents the most significant federal contribution to actual dredging work since the 102-mile channel deepening began. It's a victory for a bipartisan effort led by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) and joined by other members of Congress in Pennsylvania and Delaware, governors of the two states, and business and labor leaders who wrote letters, made calls, and have lobbied for months.

It lives at the bottom of the river. It's ancient and ugly - often described as a dinosaur with fins. And although it once made the region the caviar capital of the world, the Atlantic sturgeon is being declared an endangered species, a decision that could affect the Delaware River deepening project. No one is saying the sturgeon will become the snail darter of the Delaware. Officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service, which is making final the endangered listing, and the Army Corps of Engineers say the fish does not have the power to scuttle the project.

Melvin deserves due process Equally important to the effective administration of justice by our courts is ensuring public confidence in an unbiased judiciary. But recent calls for state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin to vacate the bench ("Supreme Court justice needs to step aside," Wednesday) are dangerously premature and circumvent the due process that is afforded to all citizens, including judges. The circumstances surrounding the grand jury investigation of Melvin are indeed concerning.

Congress declared a moratorium on earmarks to help ensure that funding decisions would be made on the basis of project merit, not political muscle. Now, inexplicably, Pennsylvania's senators are trying to get around the ban to fund the deepening of the Delaware River. This is despite reviews, reports, and testimony from Congress' independent investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, calling into question the purported economic benefits of the project. Deepening the river's shipping channel by 5 feet, to 45 feet, is expected to cost taxpayers $277 million and generate only $13.6 million a year in income at best.

"There's a fair amount of pessimism out there, but I also think that investors are slowly becoming immune to the bad news. As long as the stuff you can sink your teeth into, like corporate profit, is improving, I think it bodes well for the markets this year. " - Jack Ablin, of Harris Private Bank in Chicago, as earnings season got a positive launch by Alcoa Inc. "Despite the severe recession, and changes in the crude oil refining industry, the transportation cost savings from deepening the Delaware River remain very robust.