The mud fight on Mobile Bay appears unlikely to resolve outside of a formal proceeding.
Continued efforts to push the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers into suspending open water disposal of sediment dredged from the Mobile Harbor shipping channel hit a snag last week, according to Mobile Baykeeper, after the federal agency declined to permit a hearing on its upcoming dredge spoil management plans.
After successful legislative efforts earlier this year to limit the practice, the watchdog organization says the Corps urged it to work through its hearing process going forward — then denied the hearing it requested. Baykeeper CEO William Strickland says the denial essentially reneged on those promises to negotiate outside of a formal proceeding involving state regulators.
Responding to those allegations, the Corps stood behind its decision, claiming Baykeeper’s comments were properly reviewed and that no formal hearing was required.
The Letter That Started It
In a July 30 letter to Baykeeper, Mobile District Commander Col. Kelcey R. Shaw stated the Corps had reviewed the organization’s hearing requests and submitted comments and determined they did not identify new factual issues or materially different information from what had already been raised. Shaw offered to meet with Baykeeper to discuss the denial.
Strickland likened the decision to moving the goalposts.
“I am unsure what the Corps is thinking here. They requested that Baykeeper get the public involved in this comment period to review the damage done by mud dumping in Mobile Bay,” he said.
The Corps’ Defense
According to the Corps, Baykeeper resubmitted an October 2025 technical paper, and the agency found that the issues raised — along with public comments — contained “unfounded” claims that thin-layer placement was tied to recent oyster mortality.
The Corps makes two factual claims in response. First, it says the controversial process has not been used since the deepening and widening of the shipping channel was completed late last year. Second, it says thin-layer placement is not currently proposed for its portion of the upcoming maintenance dredging work.
“Thin-layer placement is not currently proposed for the present maintenance dredging cycle and has not been used in Mobile Bay in more than a year,” the agency’s statement read. “Because of that, claims tying current oyster impacts or recent oyster mortality directly to ongoing thin-layer placement are unfounded and do not align with current operational facts.”
The agency also rejected the framing that thin-layer placement is the opposite of beneficial use — an argument with significant consequences now that state law mandates 70 percent beneficial use of dredged material.
The New State Law
A law passed earlier this year — the Save Our Bay Act — requires 70 percent of dredged sediment to be repurposed for “beneficial use” projects such as marsh restoration and habitat work once it takes effect Oct. 1. Alabama congressional leaders have also pushed provisions banning open water disposal and funding alternative methods.
Regardless of the state law, the Corps says it is not taking thin-layer placement off the table for future use. The agency contends the process has been evaluated as a beneficial use of dredged material in Mobile Harbor — not an alternative to beneficial use — a legal distinction that would exempt it from the state mandate.
The breakdown in collaboration diminished hopes that the issue would be resolved before state-level review by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Baykeeper argues those agencies still have a role in determining whether the Corps’ dredged material plans comply with water quality rules and coastal management requirements — and the Corps’ coastal permits cannot move forward without state concurrence.
ADEM Signals It Will Enforce
During an Environmental Management Commission meeting last month, ADEM Director Edward Poolos appeared to inform officials of the agency’s plans to enforce the new dredging legislation in its upcoming coastal permitting.
“This permit is required to do any dredging within the ship channel regardless of where the material will be placed — so this is just within their normal process,” Poolos said. “After the Corps responds to public comments and finalizes their proposal, they will request two letters of concurrence from the Department. Inside those letters will be where we intend to place those requirements from the [Save Our Bay Act],” he said.
Why Oysters Keep Coming Up
The dispute is not academic for the bay’s seafood industry. Mobile Bay’s oyster reefs have struggled through decades of harvest pressure, predation, disease and environmental stress, and recent oyster mortality events have kept the resource in the news. Conservation groups argue that burying reef habitat under layers of dredged sediment — even thin layers — smothers the hard bottom that oyster larvae need to attach and grow.
The Corps counters that thin-layer placement, done correctly, is an internationally recognized restoration technique used to sink sediment into subsiding marshes and rebuild elevations. The disagreement in Mobile Bay is less about the science in the abstract than about where, how often and how transparently the practice is applied — and whether the Corps’ own environmental reviews can be trusted to police it.
The Road Ahead
The next step is the state-level review. Baykeeper has argued that ADEM and the conservation department can require the 70 percent beneficial-use threshold when the Corps’ maintenance dredging permit comes up for state water quality and coastal zone concurrence. ADEM’s director has publicly signaled the agency intends to place the Save Our Bay Act’s requirements into those concurrence letters.
The Corps, meanwhile, has offered a meeting — not a hearing. Whether that meeting can rebuild the trust both sides say has been broken will determine whether the mud fight ends in compromise or in a formal administrative proceeding that could stretch well past the next dredging cycle.