Risk and Reward

Dredging the Delaware might not bring as many jobs as proponents claim.

by Holly Otterbein

Neal Santos DOWN BY THE RIVER: Longshoremen argue that the Delaware deepening project will bring much-needed jobs. Environmentalists say they shouldn’t believe the hype.

[ zero-sum games ]

When Martin Mascuilli talks about critics of the Delaware River deepening project, his voice — usually a gruff, steady baritone — suddenly squeaks. To him, the "ridiculous, just absolutely ridiculous" environmentalists who oppose the Army Corps of Engineers' plan to deepen the river's navigation channel from 40 feet to 45 feet stand in the way of not only his livelihood, but also his family's legacy. "I'm a third-generation longshoreman," says Mascuilli, the secretary-treasurer of the International Longshoremen's Association Local 1291. "Both my grandfathers and my father were longshoremen, now I'm a longshoreman and my son may be a longshoreman. But he may not be — because there won't be a future here if the deepening doesn't happen."

His argument is simple: Ships are getting bigger, so Delaware River ports have to make room for them by deepening their channels, or they will perish at the hands of more accommodating ports, such as those in Baltimore and Hampton Roads, which have both already dredged to 50 feet. So what, the longshoreman logic goes, if you happen to harm a few crabs and oysters in the process, like environmentalists predict? The project's economic benefits, which the Army Corps says will total $32 million a year, ad infinitum, make that risk more than worthwhile.

This zero-sum story, pitting the environment against the creation of jobs, has been told ad nauseam since the project was first approved by Congress in 1992, by both politicians in favor of the project, like Gov. Ed Rendell, and environmentalists against it, like Delaware Riverkeeper Maya van Rossum. It's unsurprising, then, that when the country's unemployment rate is at 9.7 percent, a court ruled in favor of more jobs. In late January, U.S. District Court Judge Sue Robinson denied Delaware's request for an injunction to prevent the project from moving forward before the Corps secured state permits: "For those who oppose the project in the first instance, the time for that fight has long passed," she wrote. Accordingly, sometime around Feb. 26, the Army Corps plans to finally begin deepening "Reach C," an 11-mile segment of the 100-mile-long, $300 million project, beginning just south of the Delaware Memorial Bridge and ending at the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. (The Delaware Riverkeeper Network and other environmental groups have filed an eleventh-hour appeal.)

The environmentalists' main argument these last two decades has been that the deepening will stir up toxic sediments that could pollute drinking water — roughly half of Philadelphia's drinking water supply comes from the Delaware — and jeopardize environmental habitats. But van Rossum is now making a bold claim that's only been hinted at before. She thinks the jobs promised by deepening advocates are a sham: "This is a project void of economic value. In fact, it's going to inflict economic harm on a number of communities that are dependent upon a healthy Delaware River."

In 2006, Anu Mittal, the Director of Natural Resources and the Environment at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), testified before the U.S. House of Representatives about systemic flaws in the way the Army Corps of Engineers reviewed its civil works projects: "The planning studies conducted by the Corps . . . were fraught with errors, mistakes and miscalculations, and used invalid assumptions and outdated data. Generally, GAO found that the Corps' studies understated costs and overstated benefits."

Mittal cited four examples of the Army Corps' most egregious mistakes; the Delaware River deepening project was one of them. Referring to the 2002 report that first looked into the Army Corps' deepening claims, Mittal testified that where the Corps predicted $40.1 million in yearly economic benefits, the GAO found support for only $13.3 million. The GAO asked the Army Corps to conduct a reanalysis of the project, which the Corps did; in the new analysis, the benefits of the deepening dropped to $32 million per year, which is still considerably more than the GAO's estimate. The GAO will release its review of the Corps' reanalysis in March — by which time the deepening could be under way.

Van Rossum also points to the Army Corps' 2009 environmental assessment of the project. In it, the Corps admits, "The mix and volume of cargoes coming to the benefiting terminals will be the same for either the current 40-foot or proposed 45-foot channel depths."

In other words, the volume of cargo that comes through the Delaware's ports has little to do with how deep it is.

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"Every port wants to be the hub, but it is maritime shipping companies that make the call," says Jean-Paul Rodrigue, a professor of global studies and geography at Hofstra University. "The East Coast hubs are New York, Hampton Roads and Savannah, mainly because they offer the best market coverage of the East Coast with good maritime access. Going into the Delaware River represents a detour for maritime shipping companies."

That doesn't mean the Delaware River ports have no future, Rodrigue says. If the local port community continues to accommodate small vessels and remains attractive to specific markets, like Caribbean fruit dealers, it will thrive. "With or without the deepening project," says Rodrigue, "ships will come to the Delaware River ports."

But with the deepening project, van Rossum and others fear, will come the death of jobs in oyster and ecotourism industries. Snuffing the oyster industry — which could happen if the dredging causes salinity levels to rise to harmful levels or oyster larvae to move down the river; the Army Corps' computer models suggest the former is unlikely, but scientists consider the latter possible — could cost the area up to $20 million per year. The death of the ecotourism industry, put at risk if toxic sediments come in contact with migratory birds and horseshoe crabs, could cost $35 million per year.

"There's no question that the oyster and ecotourism industries could be damaged by the project," says U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-Haddon Heights, N.J.), who wrote a 2003 report titled "Hocus-Pocus: The Magic Behind the Delaware River Dredging Project." "Not only that, I don't think the project creates any jobs."

To Martin Mascuilli of the longshoremen's union, such claims are hogwash: "Those jobs won't be lost. That's ignorance. I can't possibly count all the jobs that could happen from deepening the river. But I know that none will happen if you don't do it. I know that for a fact."