How Delaware got on Jersey’s side of the river

With the state Department of Environmental Protection and Gov. Chris Christie apoplectic about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dumping Delaware River dredge material at the Killcohook spoils site along the river, it’s a good time to revisit the “”border quirk” that puts some land on the New Jersey side of the river actually within Delaware.

In the 1600s, the land around New Castle, Del., was deeded to William Penn. The boundaries of this land were set essentially as a 12-mile circle around the town, which sits on the banks of the Delaware. That deed, traditionally recognized and backed up by court decision, set the border between Delaware and New Jersey at the river’s edge on the Jersey side for the entire length of that 12-mile arc.

New Jersey and Delaware have repeatedly argued over this anomaly, but Supreme Court decisions have backed up Delaware’s border claims.

Over the years, dumping grounds for dredge spoils have actually expanded the land mass in New Jersey, but the old border holds fast, meaning that in areas of Salem County, for example, someone can walk from New Jersey to Delaware without getting his or her feet wet.

A part of Lower Alloways Creek’s Artificial Island, upon which three nuclear generators sit, is one of those areas. Killcohook, in Pennsville Township, is another. Not only is it a “”confined disposal facility” for dredging materials, Killcohook is also the name of a nearby wildlife refuge. It borders another wildlife refuge, Supawna, as well as the Finns Point National Cemetery, the Finns Point Lighthouse and Fort Mott State Park. The cemetery is the final resting place of a number of Civil War veterans, many of whom fought for the South and were prisoners of war at Fort Delaware, which sits on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River.

The current dispute centers around an agreement by the Army Corps to not dump the sediments from river dredging in New Jersey. But the corps dumped spoils on the New Jersey part of Kilcohook, apparently causing a dike failure that the DEP said has affected nearby wetlands.

Former Assembly Speaker Jack Collins, a Salem County Republican, launched a crusade in the 1980s to mitigate the border anomaly. Like others before and after him, he was unsuccessful.

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