Posted on August 1, 2024
MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – The Alabama Port Authority in Mobile has now formally responded to Mobile Baykeeper’s notice of intent to file suit over the authority’s $366 million project to deepen and widen the Mobile shipping channel.
In a letter sent by Port Authority Director John Driscoll to Baykeeper officials, Driscoll strongly advises Baykeeper to formally withdraw its intent to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
He said the action is a direct threat to the state’s largest economic driver and that Baykeeper “has defaulted to a combative approach and now threatens to halt a project that has been thoroughly vetted…”
Baykeeper said the Corps failed to account for the impact of the project on endangered Gulf sturgeon and other aquatic life which eat bottom-dwelling organisms that would be killed by sediment dumped back into the bay.
However, Baykeeper officials have said they hope they are able work out an agreement during a 60-day period and head off the need for a lawsuit.
