New fight over Apalachic­ola River dredging

With a Sept. 28 dead­line approach­ing for pub­lic com­ment on a fed­eral pro­posal to resume dredging on the Apalachic­ola River, Flor­ida counties and river advoc­ates are urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engin­eers to con­sider altern­at­ives they say could restore com­mer­cial nav­ig­a­tion without repeat­ing dec­ades of envir­on­mental dam­age.

The Corps is pre­par­ing an Envir­on­mental Impact State­ment to determ­ine whether to restore a con­gres­sion­ally author­ized 9-foot-deep, 100-foot-wide nav­ig­a­tion chan­nel as part of the Gulf Intracoastal Water­way. The review is the first major step toward poten­tially resum­ing dredging that ended on the Apalachic­ola in 2005.

Con­gress author­ized the Apalachic­ola-Chat­ta­hoo­chee-Flint nav­ig­a­tion project through the River and Har­bor Act of 1945, which con­nec­ted Apalachic­ola Bay with inland ports in Geor­gia and Alabama. Although dredging ended in 2005, fed­eral nav­ig­a­tion author­iz­a­tion remains in place.

At issue: Whether the Corps should restore the his­toric 9-foot-deep nav­ig­a­tion chan­nel or pur­sue a shal­lower altern­at­ive that local gov­ern­ments and envir­on­mental advoc­ates say would sup­port barge traffic while requir­ing less dredging and fewer envir­on­mental impacts.

Counties push altern­at­ive to tra­di­tional dredging

Six Flor­ida counties along the river cor­ridor – Jack­son, Cal­houn, Gulf, Liberty, Gadsden and Frank­lin – have adop­ted res­ol­u­tions seek­ing a lar­ger role in the fed­eral review pro­cess. “We sup­port nav­ig­a­tion, but we do not want you to come back into the river and do the kind of dam­age that you did before,” said Jim McCle­l­lan, chair­man of the Apalachic­ola River Counties Alli­ance.

For dec­ades, sand removed from the nav­ig­a­tion chan­nel was depos­ited along the river’s banks.

High water and storms carry the sand into sloughs, creeks and flood­plain wet­lands. Over time, those nat­ural con­nec­tions became par­tially blocked, restrict­ing water flow between the river and its flood­plain and dis­rupt­ing fish and wild­life hab­it­ats and the eco­logy of Apalachic­ola Bay.

The counties sup­port main­tain­ing nav­ig­a­tion but want the Corps to look bey­ond tra­di­tional full-scale dredging and con­sider approaches that could restore river func­tions, pro­tect fish and wild­life hab­it­ats and improve fresh­wa­ter flows to Apalachic­ola Bay.

Why envir­on­ment­al­ists are con­cerned

County offi­cials fear the Corps could adopt a plan requir­ing nearly 50 miles of dredging, which would gen­er­ate about 2.1 mil­lion cubic yards of spoil in the first year and require an estim­ated 926 acres of dis­posal sites across four counties. Spoil is the sand, silt, clay and debris removed from a river bot­tom to main­tain a nav­ig­a­tion chan­nel.

Before Flor­ida denied the Corps a Water Qual­ity Cer­ti­fic­a­tion in 2005 and dredging ceased, spoil was routinely piled along riverb­anks, where floods and rain gradu­ally car­ried it into sloughs, side chan­nels, creeks and the flood­plain.

Sand Moun­tain, a three-story mound of sand just south of Wewahitchka that is eas­ily vis­ible in satel­lite pho­tos, is a vis­ible reminder of that era.

“The spoil mater­ial is like cho­les­terol in that it seeps into the flood­plain arter­ies,” McCle­l­lan said. “It chokes off the water sup­ply to the swamps.”

Over time, he said, sed­i­ment clogged water­ways and reduced the move­ment of water, nutri­ents and aquatic life through wet­lands and ulti­mately to Apalachic­ola Bay.

This mat­ters because the Apalachic­ola River and its flood­plain are part of a UNESCO-des­ig­nated Bio­sphere Reserve and sup­port the highest diversity of amphi­bi­ans and rep­tiles in North Amer­ica north of Mex­ico. Sci­ent­ists and con­ser­va­tion groups regard the water­shed as one of the world’s sig­ni­fic­ant biod­iversity hot­spots.

Envir­on­mental advoc­ates like the Apalachic­ola River­keeper say res­tor­a­tion projects under­taken since dredging ended have reopened some clogged sloughs and allowed por­tions of the river sys­tem to recover.

Counties dif­fer on nav­ig­a­tion strategy

Although the counties share con­cerns about tra­di­tional dredging, their res­ol­u­tions dif­fer in emphasis.

Frank­lin County form­ally endorsed restor­ing nav­ig­a­tion if it increases fresh­wa­ter flows into Apalachic­ola Bay. Com­mis­sion­ers argue addi­tional fresh­wa­ter could help revive the region’s strug­gling oyster industry and sup­port jobs. The county’s res­ol­u­tion describes nav­ig­a­tion as the “para­mount and primary goal.”

Cal­houn County says the debate “has too often been framed as an all-or-noth­ing choice between full-scale dredging or no nav­ig­a­tion at all.”

Its res­ol­u­tion states new tech­no­lo­gies and water-man­age­ment strategies could allow com­merce and envir­on­mental pro­tec­tion to coex­ist. It urges the Corps to pur­sue “a bal­anced and for­ward-look­ing plan” that sup­ports nav­ig­a­tion while pre­serving the eco­lo­gical integ­rity of the Apalachic­ola River sys­tem.

“If you think of this river as what it is, an inter­con­nec­ted nat­ural sys­tem, then we can achieve nav­ig­a­tion and res­tor­a­tion at the same time,” McCle­l­lan said.

Nav­ig­a­tion sup­port­ers cite eco­nomic bene­fits

Those con­cerned about a con­ven­tional 9-foot deep chan­nel con­tend a 7foot chan­nel would accom­mod­ate com­mer­cial barge traffic while dra­mat­ic­ally redu­cing the amount of spoil that must be removed and dis­posed of along the river.

His­tor­ic­ally, the river car­ried agri­cul­tural products, tim­ber, fuel, gravel and other bulk com­mod­it­ies between inland ports in Geor­gia and Alabama and the Gulf Coast. Back­ers of renewed nav­ig­a­tion also point to man­u­fac­tur­ers in the region that con­tinue to use por­tions of the water­way for over­sized cargo.

The bipar­tisan Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment and Jobs Act of 2021 provided more than $100 mil­lion for repairs and mod­ern­iz­a­tion of locks and dams across the Apalachic­ola-Chat­ta­hoo­chee-Flint nav­ig­a­tion sys­tem, reflect­ing con­tin­ued fed­eral interest in main­tain­ing com­mer­cial nav­ig­a­tion.

The Corps has emphas­ized that no decisions have been made and that it is con­tinu­ing to eval­u­ate poten­tial dredging loc­a­tions, dis­posal sites, as part of the envir­on­mental review.

What’s next

The Sept. 28 pub­lic com­ment dead­line is only the first step in a years-long review pro­cess that will determ­ine whether the Apalachic­ola’s future is shaped by com­mer­cial nav­ig­a­tion, envir­on­mental res­tor­a­tion, or a com­prom­ise between the two..

The Corps expects to release a draft Envir­on­mental Impact State­ment in spring 2027 before seek­ing the state per­mits needed to resume dredging. The agency is required to identify dredged-mater­ial dis­posal sites and pre­pare a spoil man­age­ment plan as part of the pro­cess.

Ulti­mately, dredging can­not resume without a Water Qual­ity Cer­ti­fic­a­tion from the Flor­ida Depart­ment of Envir­on­mental Pro­tec­tion, the same agency that refused to issue one in 2005, a denial that ended dredging along the Apalachic­ola. DEP offi­cials say the Corps has not yet sub­mit­ted an applic­a­tion.

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