If this load came from the Allegheny River it would be one of the last. As the current permits for Dredging in the Allegheny Rive expire at the end of 2013 and no one is renewing.
In the very earliest days of a Pittsburgh Keeper program, 2002, when it was still struggling to incubate from the Friends of the Riverfront, the Keeper joined in the campaign opposing permit renewal. One of our arguments was that the Commonwealth was subsidizing dredging in violation of its public trust responsibilities. The royalty it charged did not provide enough to restore the River bottoms for future generations.
If it allows the resource embodied in the River to be harmed it should at least get a royalty commensurate with the damage. The Royalty may have gone up a bit in the two permit renewal cycles since (2003 and 2008). But what really brought Allegheny River dredging to an end are endangered mussels. The endangered mussels of the Allegheny River needed to be protected...that was the first and priority argument n opposition to the permits. The 2008 permit required impact studies that the dredging companies found to costly and the revenues too small. It is still economics.
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