Dredging Up a Toxic Mess

In California's Central Valley, 75 miles inland from San Francisco on the banks of the San Joaquin River, the city of Stockton is about to triple the size of what was, until recently, a relatively sleepy shipping port. In 2000, the Port of Stockton acquired an idle World War II-era naval base and was quick to reconfigure it for commercial shipping-too quick, according to the U.S. District Court in Sacramento. NRDC and Baykeeper filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers in August, arguing that it had not sufficiently considered the environmental damage the project would cause. Deepening the shipping channel by removing sediment laden with pesticides and heavy metals such as copper and zinc would impair water quality, and the sharp spike in traffic would increase air pollution in an area that already has some of the dirtiest air in the nation. NRDC won a preliminary injunction in September, which means that dredging will stop while the judge hears the case.