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Sen. Tom Carper joined state environmentalists, local officials and advocates Friday, May 19, to tour the dilapidated Mispillion River jetty.
The jetty, located off Slaughter Beach, at the union of the Delaware Bay, Cedar Creek and the Mispillion River, has been wearing down steadily over the years. Once it towered over the muddy waters, but now it has crumbled. As the tide comes in, parts of the rubble are invisible under the waters, causing a safety hazard for watermen and boat operators using the channel. Sediment has flowed into the harbor of the Mispillion River and causes many problems for local watermen who work out of the inlet.
The jetty was built in 1930 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help water flow into the Delaware Bay. The jetty has been repaired several times but has continued to wear down over the years, and it has stopped performing its duties.
During the tour organized by Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) officials, Carper talked to Slaughter Beach Mayor Frank Draper about problems with the jetty and possible sources of funding to rebuild the jetty and make improvements to the channel. Carper said he understands the problems, but with resources strapped, the project is not a priority.
“I see real concerns,” said Carper, who talked about problems at the Mispillion River. He said the delays experienced by the boaters due to shallow parts of the channel could have national repercussions. Many of the boat operations at the Mispillion River inlet work with oil companies. When oil tankers head up the Delaware Bay, they become delayed if local boating operators cannot get out of the channel to the tankers. These delays are expensive to oil companies and could be passed down to consumers.
The Army Corps is in charge of dredging the channel to an authorized depth of 6 feet, but funding is needed for both dredging and rebuilding the jetty, said Ed Voigt, chief of public and legislative affairs for the Army Corps.
“The last time we dredged that channel was 2002,” said Voigt. “Fixing the channel and the jetty is do-able, but funding is needed.”
Voigt said dredging costs a few hundred thousand dollars, while re-building the jetty could cost up to $30 million. All of the funding for projects like this comes from the federal government, which is why Carper was invited for a tour. Last year, Congressman Mike Castle visited the site. The tours are organized to build awareness and as an educational tool.
The dilapidated jetty is just one of the problems experienced at the Mispillion River. Small islands along the channel provide habitat for horseshoe crabs and shorebirds. With the crumbling jetty, the islands are not as protected and have begun to erode, leaving less space for the thousands of shorebirds that stop at the Mispillion to feed on horseshoe crab eggs on the way north.
Carper said a long-term strategy is needed to fix the problems at the Mispillion River, but he said funding is becoming a concern for projects nationwide. The problems with the jetty are not new, but they will be expensive to fix, said Carper.
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