On Sept 21, 2022 the United States Army Corps of Engineers (“USACE”) issued a scathing letter to Ms. Chaliese Summers of the Summers End Group LLC (“SEG”), detailing the numerous serious deficiencies in SEG’s response to the Army Corps requirements for permit review. We received a copy of the Sept 21 letter through a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request to the Corps.
As background on Sept 13, 2021, just over one year ago, the Army Corps sent a 20-page letter to Summers End detailing all of the tasks which SEG needed to complete in order for USACE to complete their review of SEG’s permit application for a 30-acre mega yacht marina in Coral Bay, St John. It took SEG five months to respond, and in mid-February 2022 the Corps received a voluminous submission from Summers End, consisting of a 69-page cover letter and 41 attachments totaling over 500 pages of material. The Sept 2021 letter to SEG and SEG’s Feb 2022 response may be found on the timeline on this website.
When we obtained SEG’s February 2022 submission through FOIA we were surprised at how little actual new material was contained in this 500 page response. The vast majority of the response submission consisted of documents previously submitted to USACE and which USACE previously had determined were inadequate. Some new explanations and justifications were added to the new material, but nothing of substance. In addition to the regurgitation of previously submitted documents, SEG included two new “studies” – an analysis of shading impacts on sea grasses conducted by the Canadian manufacturer of their proposed floating dock structures, and a numerical modeling analysis conducted by a consultant to SEG.
In March 2022 we wrote to USACE and submitted an extensive review of the SEG response. My submission included a detailed numerical model with far greater detail than the one submitted by the SEG consultant. Our submission totally repudiated the flawed shading analysis by SEG’s dock supplier. We identified all of the documents previously submitted and the almost complete lack of response in the SEG submission to the Army Corps Sept 2021 information request. Our March 2021 review of SEG’s response may be found here.
The new correspondence we just received from USACE confirms most, if not all of the review comments which we submitted to the Army Corps reviewer last March. The letter states that “The response received is information that was previously submitted and a reiteration or new explanation of the same information and fails to address the vast majority of issued identified.”
For the first time during the eight year USACE review of this project, the Corps is now clearly intimating that the permit will be denied unless SEG can rebut the numerous issues identified by the Corps and resolve agency jurisdictional concerns. In particular, the Corps was unconvinced by SEG’s limited numerical analysis of currents and sediment transport, and correctly believes that the construction and operation of the marina proposed by SEG will have adverse impacts throughout all of Coral Harbor. The Corps believes that the marina structures will kill 100% of the sea grass within the marina footprint, as opposed to the much smaller impact claimed by SEG. The Corps clearly states that SEG has failed to complete the required alternatives analysis and has dismissed every suggestion for reducing the size and impacts of the project. The Corps states that no progress has been made on resolving the serious jurisdictional issues raised by the EPA (Aquatic Resource of National Importance), NMFS (impacts on Essential Fish Habitat) and the National Historic Preservation Act (18th century historic shipwreck).
Most significantly, unlike previous requests from the Corps which identified topics needing more complete responses, this letter identifies at least five areas in which the Corps believes that SEG’s response is complete, however the complete response “may not result in a favorable” permit decision. In other words, Summers End has done all they can do to convince USACE that a particular topic is not an issue, and USACE has determined that it is still a major issue which could result in denial of a permit.
It has always been our belief that if Summers End conducted the required scientific studies and analyses, then the Army Corps could make no other decision than to deny the permit. A 30-acre mega yacht marina built on a thousand pilings over a living seabed would unequivocally have major uncompensated impacts on resources protected by the Endangered Species Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Act. This letter confirms that the studies submitted so far support that analysis. Pursuant to federal laws and regulations, the permit must be denied.
The entire letter from the Army Corps is shown below: