MOBILE, Ala. (NBC 15) — There’s a new question in the fight over what happens to millions of cubic yards of material dredged from the Mobile ship channel every year: Who gets the final say? A new Alabama law requires 70 percent of that material to be beneficially used for projects like shoreline restoration or marsh creation and specifically excludes placing it back into the water from that definition, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it’s a federal shipping channel and state law does not override its authority.
“That belongs to the federal government, not the state of Alabama,” said Dustin Gautney, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Public Affairs.
“What you’re saying is the Corps doesn’t have to adhere to this state law that passed,” said NBC 15’s Andrea Ramey…