Citing broad opposition to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ proposal to dump dredge spoils off Hog Island, Gov. Lincoln Almond is urging the corps to take the spoils farther out to sea.
But in making his announcement the governor did not speak to what could be a pressing issue: if the corps rejects his proposal to take spoils it proposes to dredge from the Providence River away from Narragansett Bay, should the state pay the additional $46 million to make it happen?
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“I don’t really believe the state expects the Army Corps to reject it,” said Almond spokesman John Rooke. “The governor fully expects to work hand-in-hand with the (corps.)”
The corps is now soliciting comment on its two preferred sites to dump the approximately four million cubic yards of sediment that need to be removed from the river’s shipping channel to bring it to its federally authorized depth of 40 feet. Since 1971, the last time large-scale dredging took place, the channel has silted so much that its depth has been reduced to just 28 feet in some spots. The shipping lane now supports only one-lane traffic, and marinas have lost slips as a result.
But while almost everyone agrees the channel needs to be dredged, few seem to agree on where to dump the spoils. The corps proposes to dump 2.8 million cubic yards of clean material in a depression adjacent to the channel between Prudence and Hog Islands. The remaining 1.2 million cubic yards of contaminated materials would be dumped in a confined underwater site off Watchemoket Cove near East Providence.
The federal government would pick up almost all of the $88.8 million cost of the project if the state agrees to use these two alternatives, which the corps determined in its draft Environmental Impact Statement concerning the project to be the least expensive environmentally acceptable alternatives. The state would have to pay only $7.4 million up front — 25 percent of the cost of the confined underwater site — and another 10 percent over 30 years.
But opposition to both sites has raged since the corps announced its proposal this summer. The area off Hog Island is known as a temperature refuge for lobsters during the summer, while East Providence officials say creating a dump site off their shoreline would hinder the city’s waterfront development. The corps admits that filling the Hog Island depression would cost fishermen some $200,000 annually, but argues that the habitat will recover within a year.
But that’s not enough for Almond, or East Bay communities such as Portsmouth which have passed resolutions against the proposal. To appease these groups, Almond has ordered the state Department of Environmental Management to investigate another site out in Rhode Island Sound. This would accommodate the clean sediments without disturbing the lobster habitat in the bay, Almond indicated.
DEM, which is one of several state and federal agencies that will issue official comments on the corps’ two preferred alternatives, will soon get set to work on evaluating the governor’s proposal. The impact the Rhode Island Sound site would have on fisheries and water quality are among the issues DEM will study, a DEM spokesman said. But the corps investigated the Rhode Island Sound site in its draft Environmental Impact Statement and rejected it, in part because of its cost, an extra $46 million, said corps Project Manager Edward G. O’Donnell.
The corps will accept comments on the project until Nov. 19. It will then review all the comments, from citizens and state officials, and create a final Environmental Impact Statement to be issued in the spring or summer of 1999.
“We’ll certainly look at it,” O’Donnell said, when asked about Almond’s proposal. But he added: “The cost is much higher. Unless something changes, if we find additional information on site three (the Hog Island site) that would dissuade us from using it, things won’t change.”
As for alternatives to the East Providence underwater site, O’Donnell said the corps could also explore using smaller dump sites within the channel. The problem, he said, is that the materials would have to be disturbed again if the government wanted to deepen the channel in the future. Putting the material off to the side — by Watchemoket Cove — avoids this problem, he said. He added that harbors up and down the East Coast typically range from 50 to 60 feet in depth.
Lt. Gov.-elect Charles J. Fogarty said he favors looking at alternative dump sites that would have less environmental and economic impact, saying the state must consider the long-term benefits besides the short-term cost, should the Army Corps reject the Almond suggestion.
Besides DEM and the state Coastal Resources Management Council, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will register official comments on the corps’ current proposal by Nov. 19.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has already issued its remarks. While saying the corps’ draft Environmental Impact Statement is a “good first step,” it is recommending that it issue a supplement to its draft Environmental Impact Statement which includes more analysis on a number of issues. One of them is the decision to permit private marinas that need to dredge to dump their materials in the dump sites the corps proposes to create for the federal dredging project. The department, in an Oct. 20 letter to corps District Engineer Michael W. Pratt, recommended that the corps require each private company to study other alternatives to dumping in the bay, such as taking the spoils upland.
