Weather, snags delay project to send Rehoboth Beach wastewater into ocean

Contractors working on Rehoboth Beach’s ocean outfall project now have until May 23 to finish work on the water.

Original permits for the multimillion-dollar project called for contractors to be off the water by April 1.

Suzanne Thurman, executive director at the Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation Institute in Lewes, said in a previous interview with The News Journal that she is concerned what impact extensions could have on dolphins, seals, large whales and other species known to frequent the area this time of year.

“And three large whale species are under an unusual mortality event declared by NOAA," she said. "All three of those species occur in these waters. That’s a huge concern.”

Michael Yost, a biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said he did not find the extensions would adversely affect any animals listed under the Endangered Species Act.

"The time of year in which work was occurring was mentioned, but not a major factor," he said in an email. "The major factors were based off of intensity and extent of stressors produced by the activity. There is no new information that reveals effects of the action that may affect listed species in a manner or to an extent not previously considered."

Delays due to weather and a literal snag in the ocean floor have forced the need for another extension. This is at least the second extension granted to the city and its contractors.

Successive storms at the peak of Delaware's nor'easter season have limited when the contractor, Washington-based Manson Construction Company, can safely work on the water. Manson is in charge of installing a mile-long pipeline below the ocean floor that will send the city’s treated wastewater into the Atlantic Ocean, where it will be diffused into the water about 40 feet below the surface.

Earlier this year, Manson also encountered delays when it hit what it says was cobble — a relatively large rock structure — that forced them to partially reroute the path of the outfall and drill a new hole under the sea floor.

“This project is being completed as safely and quickly as possible,” Mayor Paul Kuhns said in a press release. “The construction of the ocean outfall pipeline is one of the biggest and most important projects the city is currently undertaking. Once it’s completed there will be little to see, yet it’s a project that has real benefits for the community.”

By allowing work to continue past April 1, state and federal regulators are requiring that the contractors add a marine mammal observer to keep an eye out for sensitive species that come close to the construction area. They also must conduct daily turbidity and seawater temperature monitoring, according to a press release from the city.

The state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control could not immediately be reached for comment.

The project includes a new force main that will send treated waste from the city’s wastewater treatment plant on the Rehoboth Bay to the ocean outfall. There are also about $4 million in upgrades to the treatment facility and construction of a pumping station.

The ocean portion of the project is estimated to cost more than $27 million while the force main is currently budgeted at $5.7 million.

Why Rehoboth needs an outfall now

The ocean outfall project in Rehoboth Beach is decades in the making.

In 1998, environmental officials said direct sources of pollution into the Inland Bays need to be systematically removed to restore the health of those impaired waterways. Rehoboth’s wastewater discharge into the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal on the Rehoboth Bay will be the last large discharge point to the Inland Bays to be taken offline; one more remains at the former Vlasic pickle plant near the Indian River that a chicken company has been using as warehousing and storage space.

“It’s going to be a big improvement to Rehoboth Bay and for everybody that uses the bay, too,” said Chris Bason, executive director at the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays. While Rehoboth’s plant does treat water before dumping it into the canal, some contaminants such as nitrogen and phosphorous remain.

Rehoboth’s discharge historically has accounted for about one-third of the nutrient pollution entering the bay, contributing about 17,000 pounds of nitrogen and 1,800 pounds of phosphorus each year, Bason said. Excess nutrients can cause eutrophication, which is when algal blooms become prevalent and reduce the amount of available oxygen in the water, often making it difficult for fish, aquatic plants and other marine life to survive.

“It will be instantaneous [improvements] in one regard because they are going to shut off that pipe and instantly stop that nutrient pollution from getting into a very poorly flushed part of the bay,” he said. “In terms of what that looks like for the biology of the bay and how the water looks, that is hard to predict and it can take a while for the ecosystem to recover. But it’s going to start happening right away.”

Bason said moving the discharge, which will contain essentially the same contaminants, is less of a problem for the ocean ecosystem. Because of flushing from the Delaware Bay, currents and other natural processes, the pollution going into the ocean will be diluted so extensively and so quickly that it will be difficult to detect.

“It’s a real physical difference between the two bodies of water that the nutrients are being applied to,” he said. “A particle of nitrogen from wastewater could hang around for 90 days in Rehoboth Bay. But if you put it out in the ocean, it goes to a low level very quickly.”

Alternative discharge options, such as land application of wastewater, were offered by private companies, but city officials chose the outfall option instead. Garvin said in his approval of the outfall that he did not have the authority to force the city to consider other alternatives.

Because state officials have been pushing to remove direct pollution sources from the Inland Bays for two decades, Rehoboth is up against a tight deadline. A revised consent order states the city must stop discharging in the bay by June 1.

Rehoboth’s mayor said in an earlier interview that conversations are ongoing with state and federal officials, in anticipation of additional extensions needed due to weather or other troubles.

“Our focus, as well as Manson’s and GHD’s, is getting this done as soon as possible and as much as possible by that March 31 date,” Kuhns said before the May 23 extension was announced. “There’s always things that could happen. It’s not as simple as laying some brick and building the side of a house.”

Contact reporter Maddy Lauria at (302) 345-0608, mlauria@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @MaddyinMilford.

REHOBOTH BEACH OCEAN OUTFALL

Rehoboth outfall work leaves 700-foot-long hole, steel abandoned in ocean floor

Environmental board denies appeal to halt Rehoboth Beach outfall

Rehoboth Beach outfall gets DNREC secretary's approval