The environmental group Mobile Baykeeper is raising an objection to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' plans for widening and deepening the Mobile Harbor Shipping Channel, reports AL.com's Margaret Kates.
At issue is what they're going to be doing with the sediment they dredge out of the channel initially and to maintain the deeper channel.
The Corps of Engineers plan calls for putting it into sites throughout the bay using "thin-layer placement." In a paper and video, the Baykeeper calls it "experimental mud dumping."
They raise concerns over the covering up of plant and animal life and muddying of the bay. Some marine scientists, including Dauphin Island Sea Lab Associate Director John Dindo, share those concerns. “This is not a tried-and-true method of dealing with dredge spoil,” he said.
It's not unanimous opposition, however. Mobile Bay National Estuary Program Director Roberta Swann said that keeping the dredged material in its environment would be more beneficial than carrying it offshore.
“There’s a misconception that putting sediment on the seafloor will suffocate those creatures,” Swann said last month. “But really, what we see is those little critters are able to crawl out and up to the surface.”
