State targets January for Assawoman start

By Sam Harvey
Staff Reporter

The Sierra Club has repeatedly criticized DNREC for: (1) a lack of scientific rigor in checking for environmental impacts, and (2) an incomplete cost-benefit analysis. However, Delaware’s Court of Chancery ruled in favor of the state last week, on a matter appending the Sierra Club’s most recent appeal.

“As far as I know, we have clearance to move forward,” Williams said. “Chancery denied the injunction — of course, it remains to be seen if the Sierra Club is going to appeal to the next higher court.”

Williams said the dredging season — “in-water” work, at any rate — is confined September through December, for environmental reasons. Therefore, any work until next fall will strictly consist of preparations at the spoils sites (where the state will pile the dredged materials) and along the banks (where DNREC will clear away vegetation to make way for mechanical dredging from the bank).

DNREC and the Army Corps of Engineers would be working hand-in-fist on that portion of the project, Williams said, to keep any clearing to a minimum.

“We’ll be moving forward with that by next month, if at all possible,” he pointed out. Williams said he was in the process of assembling a construction plan.

DNREC had waited to see how the Chancery would rule before moving forward, and Williams said that had been a voluntary inaction. He couldn’t say whether the department would once again hold back in the event that the Sierra Club petitioned to a higher court.

“Whatever our legal counsel advises,” he said.

Despite some indication that the dredging project may actually become a reality, local Rep. Gerald Hocker (38th District) suggested things still weren’t moving as quickly as they could be. He would have preferred to see some actual dredging this fall, or at least a start on the peripheral work.

Hocker noted efforts to get the project moving, stretching back 18 years, through the administrations of four separate governors. And he said the state had come to terms with the Sierra Club on many counts.

Originally intended to take the Assawoman Canal down to a depth of 5 or 6 feet, the project had been modified to a more modest dredge to 3 feet, mean low tide, he pointed out.

“If there’s something major the Sierra Club wants, I think we’re all willing to sit down and compromise — and we’ve done that,” Hocker said. “But we’ve been trying to compromise for 18 years, and I think you can only compromise so much.”