Dredging benefits dubious

By Maya K. van Rossum

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has no interest in the outcome of the debate over deepening the Delaware River shipping channel, and it has strongly challenged the Army Corps of Engineers' findings in favor of the project on two occasions. Now it's taking a third look.

In 2002, the GAO determined that the corps' analysis of the project's benefits was based on "miscalculations, invalid assumptions, and outdated information." Correcting the corps' flawed analysis reduced the projected economic benefits by two-thirds, from $40.1 million to $13.3 million. These corrected figures demonstrated that, in truth, every dollar invested in the project would produce only 46 cents' worth of benefits to the taxpayers who would foot the bill.

The GAO took aim at the project again in 2006, when it highlighted the Delaware River dredging proposal as one of four nationwide that best exemplified the inappropriate and inaccurate methods the corps uses to misrepresent its projects to Congress.

If the corps is so confident in its most recent claims about the economic benefits of deepening the Delaware, why is it refusing to wait until March for the GAO's next review of the project? It's been nearly 20 years since the corps began pursuing this project. What's another four months? Perhaps the corps fears that the GAO will come out with yet another crushing review, and when it comes to federal funding, the project will be dead in the water.

Gov. Rendell's claims that the project will create jobs have never been documented by him or anyone else. And they are not even based on the effect of the deepening alone; they include jobs that would be created by other port projects the state is funding.

Even the corps has made it clear that the deepening would not increase the quantity of goods coming up the river. It follows that new jobs would not be created to handle the same volume of goods.

In fact, the record shows that dredging would threaten existing jobs. Deepening the Delaware would be a risk to the fish, shellfish, and other wildlife that are critical to providing hundreds of millions of dollars of income and jobs. These include:

Oysters that provide up to $3 million in economic benefits to the region.

Horseshoe crabs, which produce a substance used to ensure that vaccines and medical devices are safe, supporting a $150 million biomedical industry; and which, in providing a critical food source for migratory shorebirds, are the basis of $34 million in ecotourism income.

Commercial and recreational fisheries that make up another multimillion-dollar industry, supporting many jobs directly and indirectly.

These jobs, this revenue, and the community economies dependent on them are vital to our region - and they are all put at risk by the proposed deepening of the Delaware.

The project also threatens drinking water supplies; wetlands, which are important to the environment as well as for storm protection for our communities; the food chain, including fish that many need to feed their families, which would be harmed by the reintroduction of toxins and the damaging of critical habitat; endangered species, which would see further declines; and riverfront communities, which would get toxic muck piled as high as 90 feet.

Agencies and experts have been documenting these threats for more than a decade. If the project's supporters are so confident that there will be no environmental harm, then why not fulfill the requirements of the law and prepare an up-to-date environmental impact statement? Perhaps they fear that, as with the supposed economic benefits, such a review would conclusively demonstrate that the deepening would do unacceptable harm.

Neither the region nor the country can afford to pay the inflated price for this project. Nor can we be satisfied with a project so lacking in planning for environmental protection.

Rather than investing in a high-cost, low-benefit deepening project, officials should be supporting a viable future for the port. According to port officials' own experts, the port's future is as a feeder port - a role that does not require more than the current 40-foot depth. That is the true future of shipping in the region.