Officials from New Jersey and Pennsylvania continue to squabble over a plan to dredge the Delaware River five feet deeper all the way from Cape May to the Port of Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania officials claim that by lowering the depth of the river from its current 40 feet, the port will be more viable for shipping and economically competitive with others in the region.

New Jersey officials counter that the project is a bureaucratic boondoggle of wasted federal funds that will leave them with nothing but over 20 million cubic yards of toxic spoils. They say Gov. Ed Rendell has "taken his ball and gone home" by calling off a special Dec. 6 Delaware River Port Authority budget meeting at which the issue would have been addressed.

The Delaware River Port Authority currently has its 2006 budget to pass and Rendell called the last meeting off to pressure New Jersey into an agreement on the plan. The agency now faces a potentially costly deadline; if both sides don't meet to pass DRPA's 2006 budget by the end of the year, it will default on several bonds and will immediately have to start paying off back interest. That would cancel out a bond refinancing that was expected to save the agency over $600,000 a month in bond interest, according to DRPA vice chairman Jeff Nash. The loss in savings, officials said, could result a toll increase on DRPA's bridges.

On Rendell's side is Philadelphia Regional Port Authority executive director James McDermott, who says ports in New York and Baltimore are deepening to 50 feet while plans here have been on hold despite having the necessary funding for the past 14 years. He says dredging is necessary to handle the newest generation of container vessels, which can't currently make the trek up the Delaware to Philadelphia unless it's high tide.

"Soon," McDermott said in a recent radio interview, "we'll have vessels that won't be able to traverse our river at all."

State Rep. Bill Keller, a longshoreman who worked the waterfront for 25 years and now represents the area, says this project would benefit more than just the Port of Philadelphia.

"According to Philadelphia Port Authority-commissioned studies," says Keller, "this port means 75,000 jobs and $900 million to our regional economy. This plan is all about retaining and adding more jobs and business to our region."

One of the lead opponents of the plan is state Sen. Steve Sweeney, who is also head of South Jersey's ironworkers union. He says rather than receiving an economic windfall, New Jersey will face extreme environmental damage from a project that would involve using explosives to shatter the riverbed's rock bottom.

"Pennsylvania wants to dump 100 percent of the dredge spoils in my county," Sweeney, of Gloucester County, says. "The $400 million investment could be used for several other things in region, especially to improve port facilities and infrastructure, instead of a not-well-thought-out plan that will be structurally dated before it's finished."

Jeff Nash of DRPA, a key holdout, says the depth of the river is not a long-term fix. "Dredging the river to 45 feet is like walking halfway across the street," he says. "New container ships are being built in excess of 50 feet."

Both Acting New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey and Governor-elect Jon Corzine have stated they have no plans to speed up required approvals of the plan to appease Rendell. (Each state must sign off.)

The Jersey contingent has some data to back up its case. A 2002 study by the U.S. Government Accounting Office concluded a benefits estimate of just 50 cents on every dollar spent. The project would be funded by DRPA ($40 million) and the federal government ($66 million), with $57 million due from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

They also have environmental backers. Delaware River Keeper Maya van Rossum and New Jersey Sierra Club director Jeff Tittle say the potential destruction to the natural river life and the possible threat of salt water seeping into the region's water supply are reasons enough to stave off dredging.

"Between the spoils, the blasting and the overall destruction of a fragile ecosystem, this plan should be getting more thoughtful discussion from the Pennsylvania faction," van Rossum says. "There's a reason neither New Jersey nor Delaware have signed on to this plan yet, and that stems from the myriad of information that Pennsylvania has chosen to ignore."

Rendell spokeswoman Kate Philips, however, said the spoil-placement issue has been resolved.

"A plan is in place to put 75 percent of the spoils into abandoned mine shafts in Pennsylvania," she says. "We have bypassed that stumbling block and now is the time to get this done."

Both Nash and Sweeney, however, said they have seen no such plans.