It looks as though the Army Corps of Engineers may — may — finally begin deepening the Delaware River this Friday, for realsies.
As we told you before, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and four other environmental groups filed an appeal earlier this month with the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the deepening project; in response, the Army Corps agreed to not begin deepening until Feb. 26. The environmental groups then filed a stay-pending appeal to keep the deepening project from moving forward whatsoever before the court could consider their original appeal in full.
Well, Delaware Riverkeeper Maya van Rossum just informed the Clog that the court did not issue the groups a stay-pending appeal. Translation: It's a go for the Army Corps.
This says nothing about the outcome of the appeal, but still. Coupled with the fact that the Army Corps awarded the deepening contract for "Reach C' — an 11-mile segment of the 100-mile-long project — to Norfolk Dredging Co. yesterday at 5 p.m., and that the Army Corps said it would only hold off from deepening until Feb. 26, this means deepening is kinda definitely gonna start on Friday. But only kinda definitely. As Ed Voigt, the Philadelphia Army Corps' chief of public and legislative affairs, put it in all its vague glory yesterday:
No actual, physical channel deepening work will begin before this Friday, Feb. 26, per our recent commitment to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Also, we will not commence actual deepening work until the project sponsor completes the purchase of all Emission Reduction Credits (ERC's) needed for Clean Air Act conformity. (We anticipate that will also be wrapped up by the end of this week.) If we have the ERC's by then and the 3rd Circuit does not direct us otherwise, deepening could — let me repeat, COULD — begin as early as this Friday.
This means that, theoretically, the Army Corps could deepen "Reach C" only to later be told by the court that it couldn't finish the rest of the project. We'll keep you posted.
City Paper, 2/25/2010
