MOBILE, Ala. -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mobile District announces the availability and soliciting of comments from resource agencies on the Mobile Harbor General Reevaluation Report (GRR) with an integrated Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), Mobile County, Alabama. A copy of the integrated SEIS is located at the following website: http://www.sam.usace.army.mil/Missions/Program-and-Project-Management/Civil-Projects/Mobile-Harbor-GRR/. This document is being circulated to resource agencies for a 30-day comment period.
Improvements to Mobile Harbor were most recently reauthorized in Section 201 of the Water Resources Development Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-662, Ninety-ninth Congress, Second Session), which was approved 17 November 1986, and subsequently amended by Section 302 of the Water Resources Development Act of 1996. The Recommended Plan (RP) consists of: deepening the existing channel an additional 5 feet (existing 45-foot deep channel in the bay to 50 feet and existing 47-foot deep channel in the bar to 52 feet); adding an additional 100 feet of widening for a distance of three miles beginning at the upper end of the bend area at the 50-foot depth; including bend easing with the deepening at the upper end of the bar channel; and, modification to the Choctaw Pass turning basin to ensure safe operation at the 50-foot depth.
USACE Mobile District conducted extensive modeling of a "maximum potential impacts" scenario with potential environmental effects equal to or greater than the RP (i.e. dredging to a depth of 50 feet with widening of a five-mile channel section by 100 feet). It should be noted that the actual RP represents conditions less than the modeled channel dimensions. Material dredged during the improvements will be placed at a relic shell mined area and the Mobile Ocean Dredged Material Disposal Site (ODMDS). Any suitable bar channel new work material dredged in sufficient quantity to warrant placement at the Sand Island Beneficial Use Area (SIBUA) will be accomplished accordingly. Future material from channel maintenance will be placed at those previously noted disposal sites in addition to open-water sites adjacent to the channel, the northwestern SIBUA expansion, and/or upland disposal sites.
Comments on the Final SEIS must be received at the address below within 30 days after the publication of the Notice of Availability in the Federal Register.
For further information contact:
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Mobile District
109 St. Joseph Street
Mobile, AL 36602
E-mail: MobileGRR@usace.army.mil
Fax: (251) 690-2727
-30-
Release no. 19-013