Essay Sample: The Federal Construction of a Dam Along the Delaware River

The Delaware River remains a significant river that flows through five significant states in the United States that includes New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. The River has its source in the Catskill Mountains, New York State from where it runs about 419 miles to Delaware Bay through to the Atlantic Ocean, where it has its mouth near Cape Henlopen in Delaware and Cape May in New Jersey. The Clean River Enjoyment Workforce (CREW) refers to an association headquartered in New York with membership in all the five states through which the River has its course.

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The CREW promoters programs aim to conserve the River through maintenance of its beauty and prevention of its contamination, participate in clean-up projects, and engage in fishing, canoeing, swimming, and overall leisure activities of the River (Moran et al., 2018). The CREW organization's primary concern involves the intended construction of a dam along the River in New Jersey that may disrupt the River's aesthetics and its appropriateness for entertainment undertakings. As the U.S Army Corps of Engineers plan to build the dam, many questions arise on the dam's pros and cons to those who have depended on it over the years and the future generation that perhaps will want to enjoy and benefit from the River.

The Dams Anticipated Benefits and Threats Posed

The engineers believe the dam will essentially help produce hydro-electric power and improve the capacity to clean and prevent pollution. As aforementioned, the CREW members hold the view that the construction of the dam will considerably alter its known economic, social, and moral aspects, such as the benefits the community derives from it. The benefits include the aesthetics and leisure attraction, which has both earned people living along it generate income and enjoy its beauty and recreational activities that eventually enhance their wellness (Moran et al., 2018). The CREW members express their disapproval by raising the point that the negatives outweigh the positives the dam will generate. The CREW believes that the EIS will not offer a foundation to stop the project from commencing. With these issues in play, it remains essential to consider the implication and take a step to address these issues through the legal frameworks.

Dams bring benefits to the people. However, the inundation or flooding of land and the dam's organization can negatively impact the people, the environment, and the wildlife, not only in and around the river channel but also downstream. Furthermore, hydropower plants get funded through the tax payers' money, and the burden of social and environmental impacts lie on their shoulders, whereas the project developers enjoy the profits generated (Moran et al., 2018). Hydropower remains an insecure and risky energy source that remains highly vulnerable to the growing prevalence of floods and droughts during climate change. An assessment of the environmental impact during the preparation phases of building a new dam helps shareholders weigh the advantages and disadvantages of such a project.

Legal Aspect

The Environmental Policy Act requires that before the commencement of a project that influences the environment, the project management team must undertake and complete an EIS (Glicksman et al., 2019). However, the project management team has not filled the EIS, one month to the project's initiation stage. The project will run for five years before completion, along period to assess the damage if it begins without a completed EIS. The EIS would have highlighted the dam's impact on people, plants and animals, sedimentation, water quality, and historical sites (Glicksman et al., 2019). People and their livelihoods sometimes get disrupted through the construction of dams. Compensation for such disruptions may lead to a long-standing legal battle. Moreover, people depend on the rivers for economic gain, and any interference to these economic activities affects people's livelihoods.

Besides, dams reduce the climate resilience of riverine societies. Good plans, such as resettlement plans to reduce suffering, minimize interruptions, ensure fair compensation, and indicate that the law protects people's rights. Under the current stand-off between the CREW members and the Army Corps project managers, the provision of EIS would clarify issues raised by the CREW (Glicksman et al., 2019). From the above arguments, the governor of Delaware, CREW's legal team, Ruth Ann Roberts, and the community representatives living along the riverbank can petition the courts. Such an initiative can stop the Army Corps from commencing the project until they provide all the stakeholders with a completed EIS or terminate the project altogether (Lee, 1992). Furthermore, the legal team representing these interested parties must formulate a compensation strategy if some will lose their livelihoods when the dam is constructed.

Ruth Ann Roberts lives in Frenchtown, New Jersey, and is a member of CREW. Her family has held and run Roberts River Adventures for 50 years, a firm that operates activities like tubing trips, fishing trips, and riverside parties. Matt Denn joins the plaintiff because he is the Lieutenant Governor of Delaware and has deep concerns about the River's vitality. The entities listed above as plaintiffs will directly be affected by the Environmental Policy Act's desired application, traceable to the Army Corps' actions (Lee, 1992). The court can remedy the situation by ordering a stop to the commencement of the project.

References

Glicksman, R. L., Markell, D. L., Buzbee, W. W., Mandelker, D. R., & Bodansky, D. (2019). Environmental protection: Law and policy. Aspen Publishers. www.books.google.com/books

Lee, E. T. (1992). De-constitutionalizing Justiciability: The example of mootness. Harvard Law Review, 603-669. www.jstor.org/stable/1341536

Moran, E. F., Lopez, M. C., Moore, N., Müller, N., & Hyndman, D. W. (2018). Sustainable hydropower in the 21st century. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(47), 11891-11898. www.pnas.org/content/115/47/11891?fbclid=IwAR0JYEb35wVkeqpjmmUQIkUIiydx2emxXX_dVLDXmOSeh33nYJ_T-R6Bhso