Repair work on one of the protective dikes along the Delaware River near New Castle is underway.
Damage to the Red Lion dike is the first to be addressed after an assessment following storms last year, including Hurricane Sandy, deemed it in critical need of restoration. That's despite being reinforced with 1-ton worth of sandbags in October 2012 to prevent more damage from Hurricane Sandy.
The Red Lion Dike, positioned between Delaware City and the city of New Castle, was originally built 250 years ago by settlers for agricultural purposes. Reinforcement repairs have occurred periodically since then, however recent erosion from serious storms, waves and surging waters have caused flooding issues that threaten area infrastructure and possible contamination into the Delaware Estuary.
Red Lion is one of five New Castle dikes scheduled for repair. The four remaining dikes – Army Creek, Gambacorta Marsh, Broad Marsh and Buttonwood - comprised the original repair project announced in August 2012, before Red Lion dike was added and jumped to the front of the line.
[caption id="attachment_48091" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Red Lion dike is situated along the coast of Delaware River just north of the Delaware City industrial complex."]
“[Red Lion dike] is in the most fragile condition,” said Kevin Donnelly of the New Castle Conservation District. “It’s in need of the most repair, and both state regulatory agencies, DNREC and the [Army Corps of Engineers], recognize that and issued us permission very quickly.”
Officials say the project is needed to avoid large-scale flooding issues beyond potential damage to sewer and railroad infrastructure and transportation issues along Route 9.
“The dikes would end up failing,” said DNREC environmental scientist Bonnie Arvay. “There would be significant flooding in the city of New Castle and the area behind Red Lion dike. With Red Lion dike, there’s contamination issues dealing from the industrial sites and that causes a public health issue, because that contamination would wash into the Delaware River and contaminate the river, bay, the beach areas.”
“For the city,” she continued, “the flooding issues would be impacts to the residential and business communities in the city so there would be health and safety issues there as well.”
The project is expected to cost around $7 million and is beig paid for with funds from the 2012 and 2013 state Bond bills and state’s Hazardous Substance Cleanup Act (HSCA) program. Governor Jack Markell (D-Delaware) says its money well-spent.
“We are working to really improve the resiliency of our coastline,” said Markell, who toured several of the damaged dikes Tuesday. “The work to repair this and the other dikes is crucial to the safety and security of our citizens, the protection of our homes, our properties and infrastructure. When they are completed these newly reconstructed dikes will provide increased protection during storm events, reducing the risks of flooding and over-topping of water.”
[caption id="attachment_48096" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Army Creek dike near Dobbinsville is also slated to receive repairs and reinforcement."]
Repairs to Red Lion dike began Monday, and are expected to about 100 days to complete, what Donnelly calls a “fairly aggressive schedule”. Equipment is now on site, and crews are marking locations of limits of disturbance, wetlands and planned structures, and then will remove years of storm debris from the top of the dike, and emergency sandbags that were placed there before Superstorm Sandy hit last fall, before reconstructing the dike structure.
Work on the remaining four dikes will follow once The Army Corps of Engineers approves the plans for those areas.
“They need some additional documentation in terms of other federal agency responses,” Donnelly said. “They want copies of the signed design plans, full size sheets 36” by 44”, and some minor housekeeping things. And we also need to provide them with our compensatory mitigation plan which should have arrived today in the Corps office. And then they’ll have to review it and do their usual thorough job and then we expect their approval.”
But officials say they still feel they are ahead of the game in addressing the damaged dikes.
“A lot of projects like this are dealt with on reactive levels,” Arvay stated. “You have to wait until something bad happens. But the city and the state took proactive measures to protect their safety in the long run.”