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State believes Corps of Engineers is disregarding federal court order

The Army Corps of Engineers had begun using a section of the Killcohook confined in Salem County to dispose sediments dredged as part of a deepening project in the Delaware River, disregarding a federal court order and without advising the state Department of Environmental Protection of the action.

The Army Corps began using the facility on Aug. 13, which is adjacent to the Killcohook National Wildlife Refuge and its ecologically sensitive tidal wetlands.

DEP officials said they had been assured by the Army Corps that it had stopped a discharge from Killcohook but on Friday DEP inspectors Friday found water flowing uncontrolled from the site, raising the department's concerns about potential harmful impacts from contaminants on ecologically sensitive wetlands.

"This finding is especially troubling because the Army Corps of Engineers represented both to DEP and in court documents that they stopped the flow of water shortly after it started last month," DEP Commissioner Bob Martin said. "At this point, we do not know how long or how frequently this water has been flowing off the site and into New Jersey wetlands or what environmental impacts this situation is having. We demand immediate answers and an action plan from the Army Corps. They must stop this discharge and prevent it from happening again."

During the week, the Army Corps reported to the DEP and to a U.S. District Court judge that a dike at the facility broke, causing a discharge to wetlands on Aug. 30-31, but that the flow of water had been stopped.

The DEP sent staff from its office of Dredging and Sediment Technology to Killcohook Friday to assess the situation. They found water gushing through a weir box and into a piping system that drains into a stream. Water from the dredge disposal site had risen above the discharge pipe, completely covering it. A weir box is a structure used to control excessive water levels within an impounded area.

The staff also found that the Army Corps is not performing any contaminant monitoring of the discharge.

"These inspection results only elevate my concerns that contaminants, stirred up by the dredging process, may be flowing from this site and into ecologically sensitive wetlands or into the river itself," Martin said. "We are redoubling are efforts to get to the bottom of this situation, get it corrected and hold the Army Corps responsible."

Because of a border quirk, a portion of the Killcohook facility technically lies within the state of Delaware. However, the section that the Army Corps began using last month is within New Jersey. A U.S. District Court judge previously ruled that the Army Corps could begin its deepening project in Delaware waters but limited disposal of sediments to Delaware.

The sediments that the Army Corps discharged to the New Jersey section of the Killcohook facility are from a heavily industrialized section of the river near the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

— TOM HESTER SR., NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM