An $18.5 million dredging program on the Delaware River’s main shipping channel will be launched later this month, according to delawareonline.com.
The deeper channel will protect local ports, businesses and jobs as global shippers increasingly turn to larger, deeper-bottomed vessels able to take advantage of a newly widened and deepened Panama Canal, the port and labor groups stated.
Dennis Rochford, president of the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay, a Philadelphia-based trade association , said: “It’s critical to maintaining the competitiveness of our regional port complex .”
Environmental groups opposed the work as environmentally risky and unlikely to ever meet federal requirements to return more than a dollar of economic activity for every taxpayer dollar spent, reports delawareonline.com.
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Dredging Today Staff, January 6, 2012; Image: USACE