Controversial dredging begins

After more than two decades of debate and lawsuits, on Monday an Army Corps of Engineers dredge contractor carved away the first loads of silt in a $310 million project to deepen the Delaware River shipping channel. But minutes after the dredging pipe was scheduled to bite into the river bottom, New Jersey’s governor vowed to push on with a fight against the deepening, saying the work “makes no sense economically and it is dangerous environmentally.”