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Port gives up, plans to scale back dredge work

Published in the Stockton Record on 05/17/05

Port gives up, plans to scale back dredge work

By Dana Nichols
Record Staff Writer
Published Tuesday, May 17, 2005

STOCKTON -- The Port of Stockton Monday conceded defeat in its seven-month battle to defend a dredging permit it needs to expand port operations.

In a letter from the port's law firm to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, the port said it was "voluntarily relinquishing and rescinding its current dock dredging permit."

The letter signed by port attorney Melissa A. Thorne also said the port hopes to start with "a clean slate" on a new application for permission to dredge a stretch of the Stockton Deep Water Channel.

The move is just the latest delay in the port's expansion plans. Port officials had originally hoped to begin dredging this past winter around Rough and Ready Island. The expansion of shipping operations on the former naval base could bring as many as 500 new jobs, officials said last year.

But the port failed repeatedly to provide the Control Board with requested technical data on possible pollution from the spoils that would be dredged from the river. Despite the late and missing data, the board granted the permit Oct. 16.

DeltaKeeper, an environmental watchdog group, appealed that decision to the State Water Resources Board. In June, the state board was expected to revoke the permit on largely procedural grounds.

DeltaKeeper Bill Jennings said the port's decision to start over with a new permit request was a victory. So did Ann Chargin, who lives across the river from Rough and Ready Island and is one of a number of neighbors who oppose the port expansion.

"This is an acknowledgement by the port that the state board was correct," Chargin said.

Mark O'Brien, a consultant for the port, said officials there simply decided it wasn't worth fighting to save a permit that would soon be dissolved anyway.

"The port's intent is still to dredge as soon as it is still practically feasible and possible," O'Brien said. "My hope is that the port will be able to dredge next winter. But we need to line all the pieces up."

O'Brien said that he and port staffers would meet today to consider dividing the expansion project into smaller pieces and deciding which to tackle first.

The port's letter said that by breaking the project into smaller steps, it hopes to reduce the volume and complexity of the work that has to be done to obtain permits for each step.

Meanwhile, Bill Marshall, supervising engineer at the Regional Water Quality Control Board, said that the port doesn't have the power to eliminate its permit just by writing a letter. "We will have to have an action by the regional board to rescind that action," Marshall said.

The next regional board meeting will be June 23, a week after the date when the state board is scheduled to consider dissolving the port's permit.

Meanwhile, Marshall said the regional board still doesn't have some of the information it needs to decide on dredging at the port, whether for this permit or a future application.

Among the unresolved questions is whether dredge spoils placed atop Delta levees could leak metals, like copper, into the waterways in amounts high enough to be toxic to aquatic life. Also, the National Marine Fisheries Service has not completed its opinion on what the port's channel deepening would do to endangered fish. That report is months overdue.

Contact reporter Dana Nichols at (209) 546-8295 or dnichols@recordnet.com.

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