In responding to the questions posed by Sussex County Council several weeks ago about the Atlantic Fields proposal, DNREC and DelDOT describe expected or average conditions, but neither agency addressed the worst-case scenarios, including a fuel-contamination event, a multi-inch rainstorm or a Route 24 crash. In addition, a conflict exists between the assumed operational conditions in DelDOT’s study and its own planning timeline, particularly for a corridor the agency acknowledges is congested now and will require extensive future investment.
Furthermore, agencies responded to council based on compliance, not risk. An application may meet minimum regulatory requirements, yet fail to address the underlying risks. Council is not limited to minimum thresholds; it needs to take into account the long-term environmental and health risks, future maintenance costs and citizens’ quality of life.
What agencies did not include in their responses is as important as what they did. There was no analysis of infiltration near public wells; no PFAS baseline sampling; no peak-season crash clearance modeling; no groundwater flow modeling; no analysis of freight/delivery traffic impact on two-lane, no-shoulder Mulberry Knoll Road; and no cumulative analysis with other Route 24 projects, including recently approved Belle Mead, a mere half-mile from one end of proposed Atlantic Fields. But at least that project relied on speculative future Route 24 improvements, with housing and commercial development in rough proportion.
The developer of Atlantic Fields and/or the stores the developer hopes will inhabit this monolith are not council’s constituents, but the people who live near the site, the parents of the students who attend the nearby elementary and secondary schools, and the owners of the small businesses in Rehoboth and Lewes are. There are other sites that would serve both the project and Sussex County residents better, without it looking as if approval of the current proposed site were a fait accompli because the developer has a lot of money.
At the end of the day, it is council, not DNREC or DelDOT, that approves a rezoning decision. If the agencies’ responses contain gaps, it is council that inherits the long-term responsibility for approving a project without complete information.
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