Dredging will deepen the channel from 40 feet to 45 feet and will allow more efficient transportation of crude oil by requiring less lightering, said Edward Voigt, corps of engineers spokesman.

But, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network says this project could set a dangerous precedent, subjecting states to potentially harmful federal projects. Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) Secretary Collin O’Mara said the department denied the first permit application because the proposed project changed considerably since it was first submitted. He said potential environmental impacts of the new project were undetermined or were based on outdated information.

“DNREC remains committed to considering a new application through an efficient, science-based and transparent permitting process. It is therefore especially troubling that the corps now seeks to proceed without a current environmental assessment and without any public consideration of the project as currently proposed,” O’Mara said.

Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said last year the corps issued a finding that said it could be exempted from the Delaware permitting process. She called that finding dubious and said it was based on bogus claims.

“We believe legally they can’t make this exemption,” van Rossum said. “The only way for Delaware to defend itself against this is to take legal action. If this is not challenged legally, and defeated, it will set a precedent for all future federal projects.”

Van Rossum said environmental threats from the channel-deepening project are varied.

She said the project would threaten key species, including blue crabs, horseshoe crabs, sturgeon and migratory shorebirds. She said scientists and federal and state agencies have raised concerns, on the record, about the project increasing wetland erosion along the Delaware River and introducing toxic material into river and aquifer water.

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network is exploring its legal options as well, said van Rossum. “Should there be a legal opportunity there for us to defend ourselves, we will certainly take it,” she said.

Voigt said last April the then-assistant secretary of the Army for civil works decided the corps could go ahead with dredging, which is intended to aid commercial shipping, if Delaware took too long to issue a permit, or made a decision based on conditions that were unacceptable to the federal government.

He said such a delay would be an impediment to interstate transportation.

Jo Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works under the Obama administration, agreed late last week to move the project ahead, said Voigt. Darcy’s instruction was to begin work while reapplying for Delaware permits, he said.

Voigt said the project has changed since the original application, but its impact is expected to be the same as or less than the previous application. He said through better technology, the corps has found less material will have to be removed from the channel and the corps will now not have to find new disposal sites for dredge spoils. Some of them will be reused in restoration projects, he said, and others will be put in existing storage sites. Voigt said the corps dredges the channel routinely to maintain it at 40 feet.

Voigt said a deeper channel would allow more efficient transportation of crude oil, because less lightering will be required.

The same oil ships, not larger ones, will use the channel after it is deepened. The project will also allow some larger bulk-cargo ships to use the channel, but there would be no supertankers using the Delaware River.

The original corps application was submitted in 2001 and subject to a public hearing in 2003.

The application sought wetlands and subaqueous permits from the state to dredge 19 million cubic yards from the Delaware River’s main channel from the mouth of the bay at Lewes to the Delaware-Pennsylvania border, near Claymont, said DNREC spokesman Michael Globetti.