Don't Spoil the Apalach

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Six years ago, Apalachicola Riverkeeper set out to undo decades of damage from Army Corps of Engineers dredging on our river. With $4.7 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, we've now restored three key sloughs — East River, Douglas Slough, and Spider's Cut — and fresh water is flowing back into the floodplain and bay during drought for the first time in years. It's some of the best news our river has had in a generation.

Now the Corps wants to dredge again. Speak up now to tell the Corps to terminate its dredging study, to prevent …

Six years ago, Apalachicola Riverkeeper set out to undo decades of damage from Army Corps of Engineers dredging on our river. With $4.7 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, we've now restored three key sloughs — East River, Douglas Slough, and Spider's Cut — and fresh water is flowing back into the floodplain and bay during drought for the first time in years. It's some of the best news our river has had in a generation.

Now the Corps wants to dredge again. Speak up now to tell the Corps to terminate its dredging study, to prevent the destruction of this rich and diverse wildlife habitat.

Last year, the Army Corps launched an Environmental Impact Statement to evaluate resuming navigational dredging on the Apalachicola River, with spoil disposal along the riverbanks under consideration. Under its proposed plan, the Army Corps would dredge some 27.8 million cubic yards of sand from the Apalachicola River over the next 30 years and dump that sand on the river’s floodplain and banks—burying as much as 926 acres of wetlands and essential habitat and blocking the flow of water into the river’s vital floodplain.

If that goes forward, it threatens to undo the restoration work we've already completed — and it puts at risk an additional $25 million NFWF has earmarked for the next phase of slough restoration. NFWF has been clear: that funding depends on what the Corps does with this dredging project.

We've seen this before. The Corps' own history on this river includes Sand Mountain — a three-story pile of dredge spoil south of Wewahitchka, visible from satellites, that the Corps was supposed to clean up and never did. In a congressional hearing, the Corps admitted that maintaining the river for barge traffic returned just 40 cents on the dollar.

This is the moment to speak up. The Corps is gathering public input now, ahead of the formal EIS release. Submit your comment and urge the Corps to terminate its dredging study. Tell the Corps Don’t “Spoil” Our River and Bay. A free-flowing Apalachicola - not another Sand Mountain - is the legacy we choose.

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Don't Spoil the Apalach

Speak up now to tell the Corps to terminate its dredging study, to prevent the destruction of this rich and diverse wildlife habitat. Comments due by September 28th.

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Dear Colonel Shaw,

This letter opposes the resumption of dredging operations in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin. The Corps is currently planning to dredge at least 27.8 million cubic yards of sand from the Apalachicola River over the next 30 years. The sand would then be dumped in the River’s floodplain, burying at least 926 acres of wetlands and essential habitat. This unwarranted dredging would cost well over $10 million to taxpayers. 
 
Dredging remains economically unjustified, not least because no commercial cargo is transported on the River. Dredging remains environmentally indefensible because it will trigger a new cycle of ecological destruction, compounding the severe damage already inflicted on the Apalachicola River ecosystem and the hundreds of species that rely on it by the Corps’ past dredging operations. Renewed dredging will also undo hard-won ecological gains achieved through millions of dollars in restoration work and the River’s natural recovery processes. An additional $25 million in restoration funding remains in limbo because of the Corps’ current study and will be lost if the Corps recommends resuming navigation dredging.

The Corps’ dredged spoil disposal practices buried vital riparian habitat and mobilized vast quantities of sand throughout the River channel and the River’s rich tangle of sloughs, causing substantial ecological harm to this vital ecosystem.

Sand dredged from the Apalachicola River was dumped onto the River’s banks, burying approximately one-quarter of those banks, and the plant and animal species they supported, under huge mounds of sand. This practice of “mechanical redistribution” greatly exacerbated the mobilization of sand throughout the main channel, side channels, and floodplain sloughs and decimated millions of riverine tree species. More than 3.3 million of those lost trees lost (76%) belonged to four swamp species, including water tupelo and Ogeechee tupelo. The number of Ogeechee tupelo, which are particularly valuable to the region’s important tupelo honey industry, declined by at least 44%.

Fish and other aquatic species have also suffered significant harm from the mobilization of sand into the river’s vast network of sloughs, which has caused many critical sloughs to dry out more frequently and for longer periods of time. This in turn results in the loss of essential habitat for mussels and other species, and fish kills resulting from dissolved oxygen dropping to lethal levels. These impacts affect multiple species, including eight species listed under the Federal Endangered Species Act and their designated critical habitat.

The unacceptable environmental impacts that will result from the resumption of navigational dredging demand halting  the ongoing study.

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