Corps of Engineers Relents, Will Dredge Cleveland Ship Channel

James F. McCarty reports in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on October 3, 2016:

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced late Monday that it would dredge the upper reaches of the Cuyahoga River shipping channel where sediment has been piling up, forcing cargo ships to "light load" during deliveries to the ArcelorMittal steel mill.

The Army Corps ended its year-long refusal to dredge on the condition that, if the agency prevails in a federal court lawsuit, Ohio would reimburse the Corps for the additional costs required to dump the sediment into Dike 10, a confined disposal facility on the Lake Erie shoreline near Burke Lakefront Airport.

The Army Corps has maintained the sediment is nontoxic and safe enough for open lake disposal. But the Ohio EPA disagreed and blocked that action, maintaining that the sediment is too polluted with PCBs.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/10/us_army_corps_of_engineers_agr.html 

ArcelorMittal Steel - Cleveland

OCTOBER 16, 2016 UPDATE: Following court proceedings, the Corp of Engineers has awarded a $3.7 million contract to dredge the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. It is anticipated that dredging will start soon.

http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2016/10/13/army-corps-awards-contract-cuyahoga-dredging-to-begin-soon

Army Corps: Dirty Tricks, Dirty Water

Editorial Excoriates Army Corps of Engineers for Dredging Deceit

Excerpts:

Apparently, there is no limit to the depths that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will sink in its persistent push to poison Cleveland harbor via the open-lake dumping of toxic Cuyahoga River dredge.

Its latest ploy involves the once unthinkable for a federal agency: It has cut its own budget to ensure it will not have enough money for proper dredging and disposal.

Last year, a federal judge had to step in to force the Corps to spend the full appropriated amount to complete proper dredging and disposal.

In December, Corps officials contacted the professional staffs of the House and Senate appropriation committees and said the agency didn't need the full $9.54 million for Cleveland harbor, according to Dino Disanto, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce…

Thanks to the Corps' sleazy backdoor maneuver, this year's total Cleveland harbor appropriation is far less than what's needed for river dredging and proper disposal.

(Editorial Board, January 24, 2016, updated February 01, 2016)

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/01/us_army_corps_sinks_to_new_low_in_cuyahoga_river_dredge_deception_editorial.html

Makes you wonder how forthcoming the Corps has been about open lake dumping in western Lake Erie off Toledo.

Army Corps' Move May Thwart Ohio EPA, Federal Judge

Corps' political end run intended to dodge Ohio EPA and federal judge on dredging?

In the Cleveland Plain Dealer on January 7, 2016, James F. McCarty wrote (excerpts):

The dispute between the Port of Cleveland and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers heated up again this week after Army brass obtained a cut of  more than $3 million in funds budgeted for dredging the Cuyahoga River shipping channel.

Port of Cleveland President & CEO Wil Friedman wrote to Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman on Tuesday to express his dismay at the "troubling actions" of the Army Corps and to seek their assistance in recouping the money.

At the root of the dispute are the Army Corps' ongoing efforts to dump dredged sediment from the river channel directly into the open Lake Erie, rather than to continue its longstanding practice of storing the sediment in lakefront containment dikes. Port officials and the Ohio EPA contend the sediment is potentially toxic and unsuitable for open-lake disposal...

In the original federal budget, $9.54 million was earmarked for dredging Cleveland Harbor, Friedman said. But unknown to port officials or the Ohio congressional delegation, Army Corps brass advised a congressional Appropriations Committee to cut the budgeted money for dredging the harbor to $5.94 million -- a reduction of $3.6 million, he said.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/01/3_million_cut_from_federal_bud.html

(See Part 3: Murky Waters, this blog, 11-17-15.) 
  

UPDATE   Posted by Sam Allard on Scene & Heard, Jan 25, 2016:

Both Ohio Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman are now in "open war" with the USACE, the [Cleveland Plain Dealer or PD] said, and are demanding the agency use its own flexible account to cover costs for safe disposal of the sludge.  

Money is required, they say, because Congress allocated a lot less money to the USACE this year at the agency's request:  

The only reason Congress in December didn't allocate more money for the harbor's dredging, the senators said, is because the Corps quietly went to congressional appropriators and slyly asked for a lower amount — at least $2 million less than was needed and $3.6 million less than even the White House had sought for Cleveland Harbor dredging. Ohio lawmakers didn't notice the change until after the bill, a 2,200-page spending measure for 2016 that Congress rushed through at year's end, had passed.

By seeking and getting less money, Portman and Brown contend, the Corps could cry poor when time comes this year to do the work.  

In an editorial published Sunday, the PD laid into the Engineers for their sleazy, deceptive maneuvers, saying that with a reduced budget, they can now "shake down" the state…

http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2016/01/25/secret-strategy-us-army-corps-of-engineers-may-want-to-turn-cleveland-population-into-mutants

 

Part 2: Murky Waters, USACE, Toledo

-- second in a series of three --

The Maumee River watershed covers 8,316 square miles in northwestern Ohio, northeastern Indiana and southeastern Michigan.  The river enters the western basin of Lake Erie at Toledo, Ohio.  

The watershed is a fertile agricultural region that contains many concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), principally hogs, poultry and dairy. Agricultural runoff contaminates the river. In addition, industrial sites, wastewater treatment plants and combined sewer overflows continue to pollute, although not as much as in the past.

Consequently, the mouth of the Maumee River is loaded with sediment, toxins, pathogens and nutrients.  Among the nutrients, phosphorus is notable for its contribution to the algal blooms that plague western Lake Erie. Climate change is a factor, as well.

Toledo is a major Great Lakes port.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE or Corps) is responsible for maintaining a draft of 28 feet in the navigation channel and moorings in the river and harbor.  

                      

Every year, a Corps contractor dredges the polluted sediment and dumps it several miles out in Lake Erie.  For years, the dredgings (as much as one million cubic yards or more per year, enough to fill a 1000’ ship like the MV Tregurtha nearly twice) have been dumped at the same two-square mile site.

 MV Paul R. Tregurtha         Jeff, Greg & Amanda Barber

                                         

Environmentalists insist that open water dumping pollutes the lake and contributes nutrients to algal blooms.  In 2011, 2014 and 2015, toxic blooms of cyanobacteria (commonly referred to as blue-green algae) spread across the lake.  The 2014 bloom poisoned the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of people in and around Toledo.  The Corps denies that open water disposal has a significant effect on algal blooms.
 

Earlier this year, a law was enacted in Ohio which prohibits open lake dumping as of 2020.

The Corps is working on a process which it claims will seal or cap contaminated dredgings dumped at open water sites.  Without solid, independent verification of such a theory, there is a substantial risk that the Corps will apply a flawed process at open water sites throughout the Great Lakes.

The confined (on-land) disposal site presently used for contaminated sediment dredged from the mouth of the Clinton River on Lake St. Clair in southeastern Michigan is near its authorized capacity.  Even though the volume of Clinton River dredgings is relatively small, a change from confined disposal to open water dumping in Lake St. Clair on the assumption that the dumped sediments would be capped is too risky for as valuable a recreational resource as Lake St. Clair.