Posted on April 23, 2025
Plans to expand the Port of Wilmington through construction of a massive new container terminal in Edgemoor hit an obstacle again last week when a state judge placed another construction permit into limbo.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Kathleen Miller on Wednesday ruled that a decision last May from the Delaware Environmental Appeals Board – which upheld a permit to allow underwater work, such as dredging and construction of a bulkhead – failed “to reflect a rational consideration of the evidence.”
The sharply worded opinion places additional doubt and uncertainty around the ambitious, but long delayed, $635 million port construction project that backers say will bring thousands of new jobs to the state.
“Here, the (Environmental Appeals) board did not make factual findings, provide an analysis of the evidence presented, or explain its reasoning,” Miller said of the Appeals Board’s decision last year to deny a challenge to the construction permit, previously issued by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
Miller characterized the legal challenge, which had been brought by owners of competing port terminals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as a question of whether the Environmental Appeals Board “effectively rubber-stamped” the original permit,
The ruling comes about six months after a federal judge invalidated separate permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also needed to dredge the waters of the Delaware River to give container ships access to what state officials hope will be a new 115-acre port in Edgemoor.
Both the state and federal permits had been secured by the Diamond State Port Corporation – a state-chartered entity that oversees the Port of Wilmington and has directed its expansion at Edgemoor.
In the federal case, U.S. District Judge Mark Kearney ruled in October that Corps of Engineers officials had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when issuing the approvals to the Port Corporation.
Specifically, he said, they dismissed maritime safety concerns posed by ships turning from the Delaware River’s shipping lane to the Edgemoor port.
Like with the state court case, the owners of competing ports along the Delaware Rivers, such as the Port of Philadelphia, brought the challenge to the federal permit.
Those challenges have highlighted the ramped-up competition along the Delaware River in recent years for the profits derived from cargo shipments to the region.
Union influence?
In recent months, the Edgemoor project also has sat at the center of a political power struggle that played out between Gov. Matt Meyer and lawmakers within his own Democratic Party.
That fight began in January when former-Gov. Bethany Hall-Long nominated five people to serve on the Diamond State Port Corporation board. On his first day in office, Meyer sought to rescind the nominations, which the Senate had not yet confirmed.
Senate Democrats, led by Senate President Pro Tem David Sokola, objected and pressed ahead with their consideration of four of Hall-Long’s nominees. It sparked a showdown with the governor that ended last month with Delaware Supreme Court justices stating that Meyer had the legal authority to rescind gubernatorial nominations.
Earlier this month, Meyer nominated five new individuals to the Diamond State Port Corporation board.
And, again, Senate Democrats asserted their power to rebuff the new governor.
Last week, Senate leaders announced in a press release that they would not confirm two of the five nominees, arguing “this moment calls for different voices on the Board.”
Following the announcement, Senate Majority Whip Elizabeth “Tizzy” Lockman told WHYY that opposition to one of the nominees – Delaware’s former-Transportation Secretary Jen Cohan – was based on concerns that she is “not typically aligned as a pro-union organization.”
Cohan serves as president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Delaware – a group that has opposed labor-union supported bills in the legislature.
Among the biggest proponents of the Edgemoor container port project are labor unions representing longshoremen as well as those representing the building trades.
Spotlight Delaware asked Jim Maravelias, a politically influential leader of the Delaware Building and Construction Trades Council, whether he had pressed lawmakers to oppose Cohan’s nomination.
He said he had not spoken to legislators about Cohan but had expressed his displeasure with her nomination to the port board to his union lobbyist and others.
The Associated Builders and Contractors “has no business down there,” Maravelias said.
While legislators eliminated two of Meyer’s port board appointees, they did approve three others on Friday.
They also approved Meyer’s choice for chair of the Diamond State Port Corporation board, indicating that the previous political impasse between the governor and lawmakers might have eased.
Meyer’s nomination to chair the port, Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez, told lawmakers during a committee hearing on Wednesday that she was aware of the state court’s recent ruling on the Edgemoor permit, as well as the federal decision last year.
She said her team “had identified the deficiencies” outlined by both courts and is working on a re-issuance of the permits.
