The Real Beneficiaries of Federal Dredging: A Legal, Political and Economic Assessment of the Fifty-Foot Channel for the Port of Baltimore

In 1966 Congress passed the National Sea Grant College Program Act to promote marine research, education, and extension services in institutions along the nation's ocean and Great Lakes coasts. In Maryland a Sea Grant Program -- a partnership among federal and state governments, universities, and industries -- began in 1977, and in 1982 the University of Maryland was named the nation's seventeenth Sea Grant College.

The Maryland Sea Grant College focuses its efforts on the Chesapeake Bay, with emphasis on the marine concerns of fisheries, seafood technology, and environmental quality.

This critical analysis of the role of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in federal waterway projects examines the history of the Port of Baltimore, the politics of funding the Baltimore Harbor and Channels Project, the effects of changing environmental regulations on the Corps' permit process, and the legal controversy over the disposal of dredged spoil at Hart and Miller islands. The study concludes that the primary beneficiaries of deep-draft channels -- the small number of industries -- should pay user fees and thus bear some portion of the costs of dredging deeper channels.