Background: The United States Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for maintaining 55 Federal Navigation Projects in Long Island Sound, 52 of which include dredged general navigation features requiring periodic maintenance dredging. Following a request in 2005 by the Governors of Connecticut and New York, the Army Corps spent ten years and seven million dollars preparing a 582 page Dredge Material Management Plan for Long Island Sound which was released in August 2015. This plan will guide policy for the next 30 years.

One of the potential dumping sites selected by the EPA is approximately 1.9 miles north of Lloyd Point (the northeast tip of Lloyd Neck).

An estimated 17 million cubic yards of dredged material has ALREADY been dumped in Long Island Sound. The new plan seeks permission to allow an additional 30 to 50 million cubic yards to be dumped over the next 30 years.

In 2009, two major oil companies proposed the construction of an LNG facility in the middle of the Long Island Sound. The request was rejected by both New York State and the U.S. Department of Commerce. The rejection was based on the belief that the plan would be "detrimental to the aesthetics of the region and government environmental efforts to protect it". Here we are seven years later, faced with a different goal by basically the same entities. Why the change in direction?

By emphasizing only the short-term costs instead of long-term solutions, the Army Corps has developed a plan that potentially turns the clock back on the progress made thus far.

The petition: We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers August 2015 draft Dredge Material Management Plan for Long Island Sound does not meet the U.S. EPA mandate to phase out open water dumping. If adopted as is, the plan will result in water quality and habitat degradation to the Long Island Sound.

We thus request that the plan be revised to determine the true economic cost of open water dumping, adequately explore the beneficial re-use of dredge material, and develop a real plan to reduce and eventually eliminate open water dumping. We ask that our elected officials prohibit any additional open water dumping unless it can be proven that additional dumping will not contribute to water quality or habitat degradation and/or all other alternatives would be more harmful.