Sierra Club tours Assawoman canal

By Sam Harvey
Staff Reporter

	Coastal Point • SAM HARVEY Bill Ahlers and Ron Zink take the tour.

As it stands, there are several shoals along the canal, the worst low spots being at the intersection of the Loop and Assawoman canals, and under bridges at Route 26 and Kent Avenue. Ironically, dredge supporters are at least in part seeking to address silting in that occurred when the state raised those bridges — specifically to accommodate the passage of medium-sized craft — in the mid- to late-1980s.

The bridges were due for replacement anyway, but as Sen. George Howard Bunting (20th District) recently noted, there’d been much discussion, work and compromise en route settlement on those increased clearances.

In preparation for completing the job, DNREC issued initiated the permitting process shortly thereafter — and the project entered its nearly 20-year stretch in the bureaucratic tar pits. The Assawoman Canal has probably never been more shallow, since the time the area’s early settlers hand-excavated it, near the turn of the 20th Century.

It was partially drag-lined in the late 1950s, but the state turned away from efforts to continue recreational improvements along a proposed inter-coastal waterway in the years that followed.

There are at least a few kayakers and canoeists around who would have preferred the state maintain that stance — Callanen said about half the people paddling out on Sept. 25 were from the area.

He described their kayak outing as the perfect autumn day — sun shining, temperature not too hot, not too cold, the quiet stretches along the canal, the blue herons and kingfishers along the banks, the overarching canopy.

Even setting out just past low tide, he said they never had to get out and push. Heading north toward White Creek, they came upon a pontoon boat at the intersection of Loop and Assawoman — while the captain had bumped onto the shoals, they advised him to wait a few minutes, and he’d be clear, Callanen recounted. True to their prediction, the larger boat overtook them about 20 minutes later, he said.

“There’s no question, it doesn’t meet their drawing board requirements (20 feet wide, 3 feet deep), but if they wanted to make it passable for small motorboats, all they’d have to do is clean out these three areas (Loop Canal, Route 26, Kent Avenue),” he noted. “But they don’t want to do that.”

Callanen has been fighting this dredging project, with some vigor, for several years now. But completely aside his preferences for the canal as it has transformed itself, into a seemingly natural, virtually un-traveled waterway, what he’s been protesting all along is what he considers a lack of proper procedure. “If the canal’s going to be dredged, so be it,” Callanen proclaimed. “But, at least, I’d like to see everybody being honest and up-front about the permitting process.”

On the opposite side of the aisle, Assawoman Canal dredging supporters (while criticizing DNREC for delays caused by paperwork mix-ups) have defended the rigor of the studies justifying the project. And given the nearly 20-year timeline, it appears no one actually succeeded in greasing a skid.

Callenen still questioned the process, however, suggesting DNREC should have performed a more rigorous environmental impact assessment at the outset. And as the state’s own Environmental Appeals Board ruled (overruled by the General Assembly and the Governor), DNREC should have recalculated its cost/benefit analysis.

However, he could offer no advice, regarding how best to encourage change in state practice and procedure toward what he’d consider greater fairness and objectivity in project evaluation.

“I’d just like to shed some light on the process,” Callanen concluded. “It probably won’t do any good. But years from now, when there are boats roaring up and down the canal and the banks are eroding, I will be able to say, ‘At least I tried.’”