Digital Extra

If the channel were deep enough, they asserted, oil companies would deliver oil to Rhode Island in a relatively small number of larger tankers instead of in the hundreds of barges such as the North Cape.

A spokesman for the oil industry, however, contradicted those assertions.

"The fact that the harbor and channel entrance have not been dredged in 30 years is a shame," said Paul Hicks, spokesman for the Rhode Island Petroleum Association. "But it had no bearing on that barge being out there that Friday afternoon."

"To use the argument that we're going to change the transportation system by dredging is fallacious," added Hicks. "We have major oil companies using both tankers and barges. Some are wedded totally to barges. And some use their own fleet of tankers. Dredging won't affect them."

The dredging issue was raised at a press conference by the leaders of the Rhode Island Marine Trade Association, which represents most of the state's marina operators, and Northeast Marine Pilots Inc., which represents the pilots who guide shipping throughout Rhode Island waters. Both have been lobbying for years to have dredging done.

They said a channel that was dredged to 44 feet deep in the late 1960s is now as shallow as 25 feet in some stretches between Conimicut and Providence. As a result, fully loaded tankers can't reach Providence.

"We all know now what happens when you don't dredge," said Ken Kubic, a spokesman for the trade association. "Disaster. If they dredged, we wouldn't have the disaster we have at Matunuck."

Kubic and others blamed the delays on the Department of Environmental Management, which is concerned about where to put contaminated dredge spoils, and environmental groups such as Save the Bay.

Their assertions were strongly rejected by DEM and Save the Bay.

DEM Director Timothy R.E Keeney insisted he is trying to resolve the dredging issue, which is complicated and is being studied by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

He said he had lunch just Monday with officials from Sunoco, the state's largest fuel distributor, to talk about air pollution issues. "I said, `By the way, if the river was dredged would it make a difference?' They said, `Absolutely not. We'd continue using barges because it's an economic issue.' "

Save the Bay spokesman Fred Massie said his group was trying to get the dredging done too. "To say this thing is linked to that disaster is either opportunistic or reprehensible. It doesn't reflect well on the people who were putting it forward."

But the marine trades people argued that while dredging is done in virtually every other coastal state, it has been stonewalled here by what they called misplaced environmental concerns.

"The lack of responsible action by a division of a state agency and its environmental allies has restricted the size of vessels that can offload their goods in the Port of Providence," said Michael Keyworth, head of the trade association. "The consequence of this results in the use of barges and other shallow-draft vessels which deliver oil and other goods."

Don Church, a harbor pilot, said that of nine petroleum berths in the Providence area, only two can handle loaded tankers. The others are restricted by shallow water.

And Bruce Fisher, president of the pilots association, asserted that without dredging, Providence "could finally degenerate to a `non-port' or to a mere barge port."

The two groups said they would submit legislation next week that would bypass DEM and specify the Coastal Resources Management Council as the lead state agency in charge of preparing a dredging policy and getting the channel dredged.

Rep. Peter Ginaitt, D-Warwick, chairman of the General Assembly's Joint Committee on the Environment, attended the press conference and later said he would be open to such legislation.

"DEM, in what we have seen, has become a huge bureaucracy," Ginaitt said. "(The Coastal Resources Management Council) has proven it can (grant permits) faster. There has to be a lead agency. And right off hand I think it should be CRMC."

The marine trades association said two billion gallons of fuel are brought to Rhode Island each year, largely by barges. They displayed a chart showing that 50 tankers could carry the fuel that it would take 500 barges or 200,000 fuel trucks to deliver.

Clearly, deliveries by tanker would be preferable, they said.

It was difficult yesteday getting firm figures to support the association's arguments.

Hicks said he had no idea how much fuel is delivered. The Coast Guard estimated that 300 barges deliver fuel each year, with only a handful of tankers making deliveries. Fisher said there were 8 to 10 barges on Narragansett Bay yesterday morning, either unloading or awaiting assignments.

Sally Spadaro, Governor Almond's environmental policy aide, said the state supports dredging but it must await the outcome of an Army Engineers study on feasible disposal sites for the estimated 3 million cubic yards of silt tainted with heavy metals and other pollutants.

"There are several risks and if there was an easy answer we would have done it a long time ago," Spadaro said. "You may reduce the risk by dredging, but it's not as simple as if you do this, (the spill) wouldn't have happened.

"We are looking at it. It has reached the governor's agenda. But there are no easy answers."