By Laura Ford

Staff Reporter

It has been three weeks since the Sussex Conservation District broke ground on the Assawoman Canal dredging, on Oct. 3. DNREC project manager Chuck Williams said this week, “We’ve been making good progress with the mechanical dredging.”

Williams said that though there were hopes to get ahead with the hydraulic dredging of the south portion of the Canal, there were some minor complications. “We hope to hit it hard next year,” he said of the south end.

The six members from the Sussex Conservation District have moved along the canal and are currently behind the Bethany Beach Surf Shop on Route 26, continuing the mechanical dredging process.

The mechanical dredging involves using a long-reach excavator to remove the soil, creating new dimensions of 35 feet of width and 3 feet of depth for the canal. The project is expected to remove about 34,000 cubic yards of material by its completion.

The soil removed is currently being taken to Fresh Pond State Park, the first designated spoils site. Sierra Club member Steve Callahan is opposed to this spoil location. “The state is destroying this area simply because it is closest to the canal,” he said. “They want it dredged so badly they don’t care about the side-effects.”

Callahan was concerned with the young forest of loblolly pines that was bulldozed for the site and the potential threat to the emergent wetlands and fertile soil already on the property. “A larger area then necessary is being decimated,” he said.

Williams responded to some concerns about the maintenance of the spoils site. He said the Fresh Pond State Park is just a primary disposal location. He said once the soil has been taken to the site, it will be analyzed more extensively to see if it is suitable for other purposes.

Williams said there are hopes the soil can be used to aid the diamondback terrapin nesting area north of the Indian River Inlet. He also stated there is potential for the sandy sediment to aid in beach replenishment if deemed suitable. Of the destroyed trees, William said, “Loblollies aren’t endangered. There are intentions to restore and re-vegetate that area.”

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club gave their final briefing to the Delaware Supreme Court for their legal appeal against DNREC and the dredging process last Friday, Oct. 20. Sierra Club attorney Kenneth Kristl said the main aspect of the appeal is questioning the purpose of Section 81 of last year’s state bond bill.

That bond bill approved the funding for the dredging project while the Sierra Club was still in the appeals process to stop it, bypassing calls for more extensive studies of the project.

The Sierra Club appealed the 2004 permit allowing the dredging in a 2005 hearing before the Environmental Appeals Board. Before the board issued its late-July opinion that ordered a cost-benefit analysis for dredging, however, the General Assembly in June 2005 approved the project in Section 81 of the bond bill.

“It is the express finding of the General Assembly that the benefits of dredging and maintaining the Assawoman Canal exceed the costs of such project and the Secretary of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is hereby directed to initiate all necessary actions to dredge the Canal,” Section 81 of that bond bill reads.

Kristl said the biggest question the Sierra Club has in their appeal the Delaware Supreme Court is, “What is the effect of Section 81?”

Kristil said that if their arguments are successful, the dredging project, which is forecasted to take about three years to complete, should be halted. “DNREC would have to go back and get the proper permits in order to continue dredging,” said Kristil.

The Dredge

The Assawoman Canal dredging project involves both mechanical and hydraulic dredging methods from the northern end of the waterway at its confluence with White Creek, to the southern end of the waterway at Little Assawoman Bay. The channel will be dredged to a width of 35 feet and a depth of 3 feet below mean low water (MLW). An estimated 34,000 cubic yards of material will be removed from the canal as part of the project. Material will be pumped via pipeline to a second upland disposal facility located on property owned by the Division of Fish and Wildlife.

By Sam Harvey

Staff Reporter

About a dozen kayakers and a couple canoeists, Sierra Club members and guests, toured the Assawoman Canal on Sept. 25, for what may be one of the last trips down the canopied waterway, as it exists today. Several days earlier, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) had marked trees for clearing, in preparation for the long-anticipated dredging project that will open the canal to a larger boating public — but, from some viewpoints, diminish its attractiveness to paddlers.
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.’”

By Sam Harvey

Staff Reporter

The Mid-Atlantic Environmental Law Center (MAELC) had its day in court on Feb. 22, completing the latest chapter in Assawoman Canal re-dredging saga.
Attorney Ken Kristl, representing the Sierra Club, echoed the concerns voiced in last year’s appeal.
Coastal Point • SUBMITTED:
Hocker
Much of the argument references a document titled the “Assawoman Canal Dredging Project Assessment Report.”

“The Sierra Club believes there are significant problems with that report,” Kristl said. “There’s a lack of important information – they just haven’t answered the fundamental questions.”

According to Kristl, the report doesn’t properly address environmental impacts like erosion along the shoreline or potential damage to a biologically productive area.

“The canal is an essential fish habitat,” Kristl stated.

Others have disputed the claim that the re-dredging will hurt marine life, among them Rep. Gerald Hocker (38th district).

He said a re-dredging in 1958 had improved water quality, and increased marine life returned to the canal following the project.

“I just wish common sense would play a little part in this,” he said. “How can fish and crabs live in an area where there’s no water?

“The last thing we want in Sussex County is more dead-end canals,” Hocker stated. “We maintain our tax ditches better than we do the Assawoman Canal.”

The MAELC has raised concerns regarding impacts at the spoils sites. The state estimated they would need to dispose of 34,000 cubic yards of material, split between an old spoils site near South Bethany, at the south end, and the Fresh Pond State Park, near the north end.

There was mention of possible disposal on the beach, near Bethany, as well.

The cost-benefit analysis also remains a bone of contention — although DNREC claimed it withdrew its own permit in April 2004 because of a public record anomaly regarding environmental issues, the Sierra Club claimed it was because the department hadn’t provided an economic study until after the close of the public comment period.

The Army Corps of Engineers did complete a cost/benefit analysis as part of approving the project, but the Sierra Club questioned its rigor.

According to Hocker, DNREC bought the canal from the Army Corps specifically for recreational use, but as it continued to fill in, it was becoming less and less well-suited for recreation.

• Circa 1900 — the 3.9- mile Assawoman Canal is hand-dug by the area’s early settlers.
• 1957 — Gov. Caleb Boggs signs an appropriation bill for re-dredging, to a depth of four feet.
• 1958 — Atkins Brothers start drag-lining, and the project is 60-65 percent complete by February (followed by a gap in the record).
• 1976 — midway through a project to run sewer mains to South Bethany, a nor’easter washes cofferdams into the canal.
• 1990 — Parks and Recreation acquires the canal, and lands along the bank, from the Army Corps of Engineers. The state issues a permit for re-dredging.
• 1995 — the Sierra Club points out that the permit has expired, and asks the state to reissue.
• 2002 — the state reissues the permit. The Sierra Club appeals the decision.
• April 2004 — the Sierra Club has its day in court, but the state withdraws its own permit before answering that testimony, citing a clerical omission.
• August 2004 — at the urging of local legislators, the permit is reissued on a fast track. The Sierra Club once again appeals the decision.
• Feb. 22, 2005 — the Sierra Club has returns to court, and awaits answering testimony from DNREC — slated for March 22.

If approved, according to the DNREC press release, the canal will be widened to 35 feet and dredged to 3 feet below the mean low tide mark.

The state will stabilize 220 feet of the western bank with a modified form of concrete riprap.
Permit conditions include establishment and enforcement of a no-wake zone and a prohibition on marina development along the canal.

The state will also have to monitor the canal for dissolved oxygen and bacteria levels, to evaluate how the dredging impacts water quality.