Burlington Island To Be Used For Dredge Spoils

Burlington Island, which sits just off shore from Bristol Borough, could become a dumping ground for Delaware River dredge spoils once again.

The Army Corps of Engineers is currently working on a plan to clear a portion of the 400-acre island to dump spoils from a project to dredge the Delaware River, which has an international shipping lane that goes to the port in Falls Township and out to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Cherry Hill Courier-Post reports the Army Corps of Engineers could soon award a contract to clear about 40 acres of land on the island, which is owned by New Jersey, and begin work before the month is over. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote the cleared site will see a dike being constructed around a basin that can hold 400,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils.

“The sand and mud that its dredging ship will remove from the river are part of “normal maintenance” of the Delaware’s shipping channel and are not intended to deepen it, he said. Most of the dredge material will be taken from the section of river between Trenton and Allegheny Avenue in Philadelphia,” the Inquirer article states.

Tim Boyle, spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said to the Courier-Post that the project bid includes the trees and vegetation cleared from the 40-acre dumping site to be placed on the northern end of the island.

Officials in Burlington City, New Jersey have raised concerns about any impact the project might have on three generations of bald eagles that live on the island, NJ.com reports. According to a 2015 New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife report, the eagle population has rebounded in the state in recent years after nearly being wiped out by pesticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane. The data in the report indicates the island, which once housed an early European settlement and an amusement park more recently, had active eagle nests in 2015.

Burlington City officials are still looking at their options and deciding whether they will oppose the Army Corps of Engineers project on the island, a portion of which is controlled by a public board, city business manager David H. Ballard told the Inquirer.

On the Pennsylvania side of the river, Bristol Borough Manager Jim Dillon said he was not aware of any plans for the island and will request federal officials to provide details.

Development has been proposed on the island for years but no plans have moved forward. In the past decades, a Lenape village, walking trails and an archaeological museum have all been suggested.

Currently, the mainly wooded island features the scant remains of the early 1900s-era amusement park and various smaller buildings. The large lake that takes up a portion of the island was formed when a company dredging sand from the island struck a fresh water spring.