By the time anybody decides whether to build a shipping port at Quonset, the whole shipping industry will be out of vogue. We’ll teleport goods from one continent to another, much like Spock would descend to some planet below.
This discussion about a port has been going on for years, and maybe five or six years ago the Economic Development Corporation (then Department of Economic Development) was generating an elaborate report suggesting that thousands of jobs would be created with the development of not only the port, but the third rail and new highway connection to Route 4.
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Now, director Thomas Schumpert is saying that the state is urging the Army of Corps of Engineers to get on with its Environmental Impact Statement by year’s end, a process that he suggests could take two to five years. Meanwhile, anti-port groups are saying the state is moving too fast.
This has been a project mired in political posturing, much the outgrowth of a year-long stakeholders process that was convened without any specific proposal on the table.
Once the Environmental Impact Statement is completed only then will the state determine whether a port at Quonset is economically and environmentally feasible.
This whole process has taken much too long, as other ports along the East Coast have undertaken improvements that are attracting shipping business. It’s time to get on with the environmental statement, so that a decision can be made one way or the other on Quonset and development can proceed according to whatever the decision.
