The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released a draft environmental impact statement on its channel deepening plan, which surprised no one by recommending that all major Harbor channels be deepened to 50 feet. That may or may not be a good idea, but the Corps is begging the question by claiming that deepening channels would have no impact on highway and railroad networks or on proposals to fill hundreds of acres of wetlands, shallow bay and interpier habitat to expand the Port.

The Corps' leap of faith is based on the assertion that market forces will bring millions of additional containers into the Port regardless of the depth of the channels, and that the deepening will simply make it cheaper to do so, saving U.S. consumers a bundle. It is interesting to note that while the necessarily imprecise benefit-cost analysis shows deepening channels to the Jersey City/Bayonne peninsula to be well worth the money, blasting out the Kill van Kull barely squeaks by, even if piggybacked on other dredging projects.

The study completely fails to acknowledge that 50-foot channels will make it more attractive for the Port Authority and other port developers to make investments to bring the next increment of growth to the Port of New York and New Jersey, which without question will bring with it significant highway and wetland impacts.

The EPA is spearheading an effort to ensure that all such factors are taken into account in a unified fashion before new port facilities are permitted by means of a comprehensive Memorandum of Understanding among the various agencies involved. To date, there has been no opportunity for public input on the MOU, and it remains unclear why the Corps' study should have been allowed to proceed independent of the agreement. Public comment on the channel deepening study is due by November 14^th.

The NY Metropolitan Transportation Council, North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority and metropolitan planning organizations in Connecticut are seeking federal funding (from a program designed to facilitate international trade) to launch yet another regional port and freight study.



A project summary distributed by NYMTC yesterday said the new work would build from existing studies to look at port expansion implications and rail freight and other possibilities on Long Island, in Connecticut and elsewhere within the distribution reach of the NY/NJ port.



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