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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced late Monday it would dredge the Cuyahoga River shipping channel for the first time this year, breaking a year-long stalemate with the Ohio EPA and the Port of Cleveland.
(Tom Ondrey/Plain Dealer file photo)
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.
Army Corps spokesman Andrew Kornacki said the agency informed U.S. District Judge Donald Nugent of the decision.
The Army Corps is required by law to dredge the six-mile shipping channel and Cleveland Harbor to a depth of 23 feet to maintain marine commerce. During a normal year, the Corps would have dredge the channel in May and September, but insisted it wasn't necessary until now.
Barring Monday's end to the year-long stalemate, it would have marked the first time in at least 30 years that the Corps had failed to dredge the shipping channel and harbor, Kornacki said in an email to The Plain Dealer.
The dispute between the Army Corps and the Ohio EPA-Port of Cleveland reached a critical stage last week after the ArcelorMittal company told Nugent that the steel mill would possibly be forced to shut down their blast furnaces if the judge didn't immediately order the Army Corps to dredge.
As sediment built up in the shipping channel, cargo ships were forced to lighten their loads to prevent bottoming out or becoming stuck in the river. Due to the lighter loads, the steel mill's inventory of iron ore pellets had reached a critically low level, the company's lawyers said.
Kornacki said the Corps has closely monitored channel conditions throughout the year, and that until now the channel had sufficient depths to maintain navigation.
"Recent channel surveys show that the upper reach of the Cuyahoga River is experiencing shoaling that could be alleviated by dredging." Kornacki said.
ArcelorMittal is responsible for dredging around its docks, but it can't dredge until the Army Corps completes its work in the center of the shipping channel, said Port of Cleveland President and CEO Will Friedman.
Ohio's U.S. senators, Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman, wrote recently to Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy, demanding an end to the Army Corps' "irresponsible" decision not to dredge.
Nugent has not yet decided whether to order the Army Corps to dredge and dispose of the sediment in a lakefront containment dike.
Last year, Nugent ordered the Army Corps to dredge, stating: "the loss of even one to two feet of depth could result in economic losses to the area in excess of $2 billion annually."