More on what the feds weighing in on the proposed Rehoboth Beach Outfall Pipe might mean.
Linked letter from the paper here http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/p/a-revelation-on-proposed-ocean-outfall/1267328 Please chime in by leaving a comment below the letter online. Full letter text here:
A revelation on proposed ocean outfall
The Surfrider Foundation agrees with Rehoboth Beach Mayor Sam Cooper that stormwater pollution is a significant problem in our area. We also agree that tying the financing of stormwater upgrades to the financing of the proposed ocean outfall pipe is not a good idea either.
Here is why: the actual costs for building the ocean outfall pipe are going to be much higher than the city’s engineers anticipated. This is because NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, weighed in on the outfall pipe proposal in 2012 with a letter.
One of their concerns is the proximity of the proposed pipe to Essential Fish Habitat, namely Hen and Chickens Shoal.
Essential Fish Habitat, EFH, has certain legal meaning under the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Law. In this particular EFH, some of the fish species live there, some are migrating through while foraging and feeding, others are spawning there and one is critically endangered, Atlantic Sturgeon. The NOAA letter states that 30 federally managed fish and shellfish species are in this area, covered by 10 fishery management plans and for which Essential Fish Habitat has been designated by the New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Councils, and NMFS, the National Marine Fisheries Service.
NOAA’s correspondence made it clear to DNREC that there will be many additional federal hoops to jump through in order to put this pipe in the ocean. The law requires baseline studies before construction, mitigation of degraded habitat, and monitoring to determine impacts during and after construction. These steps could quite possibly add several million dollars and many years to the project. This is critical information that the people paying for the project, the taxpayers of Rehoboth, Sussex County, and the State of Delaware need to know. But this NOAA letter and its potential to add costs to the project seem to be unknown outside of DNREC.
One of our Delaware Chapter volunteers recently brought this to the attention of a Water Infrastructure Advisory Council meeting, and they had no prior knowledge of it. Regardless of how you feel about the pipe, people need all of the information relevant to the final cost and construction timeline in order to make good decisions. This revelation is certainly making alternatives such as spray irrigation a more practical choice financially, logistically, and environmentally.
John Weber
Surfrider Foundation
Mid Atlantic Regional Manager
Bradley Beach, N.J.