Dredging will keep rowers off Cooper River even longer

A dredging operation on the Cooper River is taking longer than expected, Camden County officials say, and rowing teams likely will not be allowed on the water before May 1, disrupting the practice schedules of hundreds of rowers.

A May start would be two months later than the county told a meeting of coaches in early February, and not what the Haddon Township Crew Club imagined as members towed their floating docks into place on Feb. 21.

"My expectation was that we'd be starting practices out there two days ago," Haddon's visibly disappointed head coach, Gregg Francis, said Thursday on learning of the delay.

Seven clubs and about 300 rowers practice on the Cooper.

Disruptions to last year's summer and fall rowing seasons have already cost his small club members, said Francis, who fears the latest delay could send more youngsters packing.

"We usually have about 30," he said, gesturing toward a roomful of teenagers pulling on rowing machines in a basement room at Haddon Township High School. "This year we're down to 17."

Francis and other coaches said they must now scramble to find other venues for on-water practices, which are essential to training. But these will require costly busing to the Delaware River or the Schuylkill, they said, and can add an hour or more to after-school practice sessions that already last two hours.

"It's very frustrating," said Rich Henderson, head coach for Moorestown High School's team. Like Francis, he had expected his 90 rowers to be on the water last week.

"This is indicative of the lack of communication we've had since June," he said. Meanwhile, he added, "Philly kids have been rowing on the Schuylkill for two weeks."

Frank Moran, director of Camden County's parks department, said last week that the state Department of Environmental Protection had granted a one-month extension to the dredge operator's permit because the job, which began late November, was taking longer than projected.

The $10 million project, originally scheduled for 2014, is intended to deepen the Cooper to at least five feet for its entire 2,000-meter course, restoring its reputation as a premier rowing river.

The sixth, southernmost lane of the course has for years been so shallow that oars can catch bottom at low water. A few boats have even gone aground.

If the weather cooperates, Moran said, the dredging could be completed by April 1, but some dredge pipes would likely be in place for weeks after, posing what he said could be a hazard to rowers.

The moratorium "is because of legal reasons, and because we don't want any of our young rowers to get hurt," Moran said. He also voiced concern that a damaged pipe - they are made of thick PVC - could spew contaminated dredge spoils into the water.

But coaches who attended a Feb. 10 meeting at the Camden County Boat House say they now feel misled by county officials, who told them then that they could start on-water practices on March 1 if they were confident they could do so safely.

"We [coaches] had a meeting that Sunday," Francis recalled last week, "and we all agreed it could be made safe. We told the county that. We thought we had a plan in place."

Elmer Foster, vice commodore of the Cooper River Yacht Club, also voiced frustration at news of the closure.

"We sail that river without hitting the banks, so we can sail it without hitting the pipes," he wrote in an email. "There seems to be no really good reason to keep our boats off the river, and in fact the rowers have plans that would keep them safe also."

All three club leaders said that they learned of the latest delay of their seasons indirectly, and that by week's end the county had not scheduled a meeting with them.

"They say it's being done for us," said Henderson, "but they don't talk to us."

Dave Smith, president of Berlin-based Mount Construction Co., told the February meeting that he expected the dredging would be done before April, but that there would be room for a 1,500-meter practice course while the operation continued.

"My guys are working around the clock, 24-7," he said then.

Smith said that dredging projects of this size, which his firm is attempting to do in five months, typically take a year or more.

In an effort to complete the Cooper project with minimal disruption to rowing, he said, his firm had tried a novel technique for quick-drying dredge spoils recommended by the DEP. But it proved much too slow, Smith said, and he had to abandon that method over the winter and start over.

If his crew cannot finish the job by the extended deadline, he said, Mount Construction would have to leave its four miles of pipe in place well into the summer, because he cannot resume operations until July 1.

Smith did not respond to an interview request last week.

Henderson and Francis both said they would see about returning to the yacht club and marina in Burlington City, whose docks they used last fall, when the dredging was scheduled to begin.

Soon-Hi Dempsher, a senior at Moorestown High, said she was eager to get on a river after six days a week pulling on indoor rowing machines, called "ergs."

"Erging is a painful necessity," she said, "but nobody likes it. We just do it so we can get on the water."

doreilly@phillynews.com

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