Posted on September 10, 2025
A coalition of the six Florida counties along the river is urging federal officials not to return to past practices they say destroyed or smothered floodplain habitat and choked creeks with dredged sand.
GREENWIRE | TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Some Florida counties and environmental groups are opposing a federal move to consider resuming dredging in the Apalachicola River to maintain a shipping channel.
The Army Corps of Engineers received $3 million in a fiscal 2024 federal budget package to analyze options for restarting dredging for the first time since 2001. Florida officials, under Gov. Jeb Bush about 20 years ago, denied a federal request for a state permit because of past harm caused by dredging.
The Army Corps earlier this year launched an analysis to produce an environmental impact statement in support of renewed dredging. But a coalition of the six Florida counties along the river is urging federal officials not to return to past practices they say destroyed or smothered floodplain habitat and choked creeks with dredged sand.
“Our members have seen the Corps’ proposal for re-establishing navigation and my hope is to avoid repeating the devastating mistakes of the past,” coalition representative Jim McClellan wrote to the agency last month. “We know from terrible experience the impact of extensive dredging — years of damage to the river and a breakdown of trust between the Corps and our communities in the process.”…
