Fear and frustration have gripped the docks of mid-Michigan amid political wrangling that could sink a summer dredging project in the upper Saginaw River.
Anxious workers at companies along the waterway who depend on the trade to earn a living blame their angst on a squabble between two regulatory agencies.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could divert more than $2 million earmarked for navigational dredging of the Saginaw River to other rivers. The reason for the about-face is the state Department of Environmental Quality believes the dredging spoils disposal site requires a slurry wall.
Mike O'Bryan, chief of engineering and technical services for the Army Corps in Detroit, said a $5 million clay pit built to hold river spoils on the Bay-Saginaw county line "is adequate."
Meanwhile, Tri-Cities dock employees are perplexed.
"It's really depressing to think that two governmental agencies can't come together," said Joy Krueger, 59, an office manager at Wirt Stone Dock, 4700 Crow Island in Saginaw. "I understand the environmentalists' concerns, but if the river isn't dredged, all of that silt will just pile up and that's no good for the environment."
Members of the Saginaw River Alliance are disappointed government regulators would wrangle over something so critical to the regional economy. Officials have said millions of dollars and more than 100 jobs could vanish.
"It's already been tough," said Michael Horn, vice president of Saginaw Rock Products Co., 1701 N. First, who said if the dredging mission goes elsewhere, "you're talking about my livelihood."
Many of the dock workers make $10 to $15 an hour with medical benefits.
"It's been scary," Horn said.
William "Billy" Webber of the River Alliance, a dock owners group that has invested more than $3.3 million in the dredging site in Zilwaukee Township and Bay County's Frankenlust Township, including a $1.3 million grant that the state will want back if the dredging doesn't happen, said he is "apprehensive and disgusted."
Webber owns Sargent Docks & Terminal Inc., with offices at 5606 N. Westervelt in Saginaw and Essexville. He said other states are clamoring for river funds and would gladly take the project originally meant to benefit mid-Michigan.
He cited Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and New York as suitors. In Michigan, O'Bryan said, the dredging venture could end up in St. Joseph, near Lake Michigan.
"This is all political," Webber said. "The DEQ scientists hadn't even seen all of the (facts) before saying we needed a slurry wall."
Last year, U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington in Bay City gave his approval of the river project "and called it a fully safe site," Webber said.
"Most states trust the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but here they're looked at as villains," he said.
O'Bryan said leaders from his Army Corps office and the DEQ plan to meet next week to try to reach a resolve.
"We've been talking," he said. "I might have come off a little strong (in earlier reports), but our No. 1 option is Saginaw, and we're still planning to do that. There is just a little bit of a disagreement with how we get there."
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