Delaware News

DOVER - To achieve public compliance through education and enforcement actions that help conserve Delaware's fish and wildlife resources and ensure safe boating and public safety, DNREC Division of Fish & Wildlife Enforcement agents issued 28 citations On Feb.

An accident has closed the northbound left lane of U.S. 13 at Cannon Road in Sussex County, according to the Delaware Department of Transportation.

Winter won't be over for a couple more months, but already the sun is climbing a little higher in... Anything Once: Cupcakes for Valentine's Day: In the spirit of Valentine's Day, reporter Ashley Barnas learns how SAS Cupcakes obtains icing perfection and manages to sell more than a thousand cupcakes each day.

The Mullins of Pike Creek would have benefited from a new medical information initiative called Help Me Grow.

The Sustainable Energy Utility has approved a no-bid contract with a New York firm to guide a second round of renovations to school, hospital, university and government buildings and extend the program to the private sector. But Gov. Jack Markell's office is saying not so fast on a second round, hoping to see evidence the first round of renovations are putting Delawareans to work. The contract with Becker Capital and Finance was signed Dec. 12 by Sen. Harris McDowell III, one of the co-chairmen of the SEU, after the organization's board approved it, said Frank Murphy, the SEU's attorney. Becker, the SEU's financial adviser who assisted during the first round of renovation bonds, was originally selected through an open bidding process, Murphy said. The SEU is not subject to state procurement rules, allowing it to bypass another round of open bidding to retain Becker for a second round, Murphy said. The SEU is a state-created, quasi-public organization designed to reduce energy consumption and promote small-scale renewable energy in Delaware. It receives its funding from a regional cap-and-trade initiative and has some leftover funds from the stimulus. Becker will be paid $110,000, plus expenses, for activities leading up to the bond issuance, as well as a role in the upcoming review of the SEU's finances. Becker also will be eligible to receive up to $50,000 from the bond issuance itself, according to the contract. The SEU is using the public's money and should have followed a more rigorous procurement procedure, said Brian White, who lobbys for state solar installers. White said he was speaking on behalf of himself. The SEU raised $73 million in bonds last year for renovation projects. The private contractors that performed the work guaranteed the agencies receiving the upgrades a long-term savings on their energy bills. The state agencies, in turn, guaranteed the bonds with payments over 20 years from the energy savings they would realize. The state also invested $11.3 million from the Bond Bill, Delaware's traditional method for funding capital projects. The companies winning the contracts to perform work in the first round were Ameresco, Noresco, Pepco Energy Services, Crane, Trane, Johnson Controls and Honeywell. None are based in Delaware, although Murphy said two have offices in Delaware. It was the agencies, not the SEU, that chose the contractors, Murphy said. 'It certainly would have been better to have more Delaware firms working on these, but to the extent the contractors who were awarded work have the ability to use available Delawareans to meet any outstanding needs on their projects, that would be a benefit to the state,' said Markell's spokesman, Brian Selander. The work is expected to generate about 980 construction jobs. Murphy said he didn't know how many had yet been hired, but of those that had been, 'the overwhelming majority of the jobs created were jobs for Delawareans.'

Gov. Jack Markell and his cabinet visit Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes.A Shown are Delaware State Police Col.

The observance of Black History Month in Delaware officially began with an eventA last weekA at the First State Heritage Park Welcome Center and GalleriesA at the Delaware Public Archives in Dover.

The delegation from Miyagi, Japan met with Bob Dayton, President of the Delaware Bio Science Association, and Mike Bowman, head of Delaware Technology Park to discuss potential business exchanges.

A real estate developer said he and four partners plan to make an offer to buy the city's two... WILMINGTON - Richard G. Andrews formally took his oath of office today to become Delaware's newest federal judge surrounded by family, friends, court officials and well-wishers at the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building.

The getaway driver in the 2009 killing of Georgetown Patrolman Chad Spicer is back in prison, two years after striking a deal with prosecutors to testify against the gunman.

Police from Dover to Delmar used K-9 units to search for the individual police alleged walked into the fast-food restaurant, displayed a black handgun and then left with an undisclosed amount of money.

As preparation begins for town hall building improvements, Millsboro Assistant Town Manager Matt Schifano reported this week that the Town had not only received a $40,000 energy grant but had secured another $21,000 in reallocated funds.

Proposed legislation to increase Delaware's minimum wage is being met by opposition from area business owners and officials.

More than 12,000 Delawareans in the Medicare "doughnut hole" saved an average of $757 last year, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Two Middletown men were arrested by University of Delaware police after being linked to the theft of two iPhones from the Carpenter Sports Building.

Donna Williams said she has trapped and spayed or neutered at least 37 feral cats near her home in Millsboro, sometimes with government-issued vouchers, but often out of pocket.

According to the Delaware Office of Highway Safety, 21 drivers did not heed the warning to use designated drivers on Super Bowl Sunday and were arrested by state and local police officers for driving under the influence of alcohol.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday it will sink about $16.9 million this year into the deepening of the Delaware River's main shipping channel. The move is a clear sign that the 103-mile project is gathering steam despite budget criticisms and environmental protests. The largest infusion of public cash in several years for the $267 million deepening project followed strong behind-the-scenes lobbying by Gov. Jack Markell and Delaware's congressional delegation. The politicians had been far more guarded in their public support for the controversial deepening in past years. Things changed in 2011, after Delaware lost a challenge to the Corps' power to dredge without state permits, and after the Corps' environmental studies passed muster with the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior. By late in the year, with dredging already under way, Markell and all three of the state's members of Congress were pressing the Corps to include the deepening in its work plan for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. That appeal put Delaware squarely in the middle of a national scramble for money from new 'special accounts' created by Congress after a moratorium on budget earmarks for pet projects. 'It's earmarking by another name,' said Maya van Rossum, who directs the Delaware Riverkeeper organization, a conservation group that has fought the deepening for years. 'Call it a slush fund, call it whatever you will, it's a way to skirt the ban on earmarks, and the Delaware River is one of the poster children.' Delaware officials saw things differently. 'This project will have a significant, positive economic impact on Delaware and the region,' Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said in a joint statement with Sen. Chris Coons and Rep. John Carney, fellow state Democrats. 'Investments like this one are critical to the long-term development of the Port of Wilmington and Delaware, as well as the other states along the Delaware River, to help us continue our economic recovery and to stay competitive.' Katie Wilson, a spokeswoman for Carper, said late Wednesday that the deepening plan has 'evolved over nearly two decades,' and said that Carper had followed its environmental and economic impact closely throughout. After reviewing an updated environmental impact study last year, Carper joined other state leaders in supporting the deepening, she said. Markell, in correspondence late last year, noted the project's importance to Delaware's emerging effort to expand the Port of Wilmington onto the bank of the Delaware River. 'I appreciate the Corps' recognition of the economic benefits this project could bring to Delaware,' Markell said late Wednesday. In the works for decades, the project would deepen the Delaware River and Delaware Bay shipping channel to 45 feet from its current 40-foot depth. Project supporters say the dredging would provide deeper-bottomed ships access to ports and refineries in the Philadelphia, Wilmington and South Jersey areas, protecting the region's economy and giving port interests a stronger hand in competition for shippers. Others, however, accused federal officials of using a procedural dodge to fund the latest phase. Corps officials will draw this year's deepening money from special funds that Congress established in the agency's budget, allowing members to bypass regular budget procedures. 'This is blood money; they are taking money from the taxpayers to try to destroy our river and estuary,' said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. 'The Delaware deepening will cause irreparable harm to the Delaware River, the aquifer and the people of South Jersey. Instead of using this money to protect our drinking water and the environment, it is being used to destroy it.' Taxpayers for Common Sense, a national group, accused Congress of shaving funds from other projects to create accounts that members then targeted for spending guidance. 'Many of these were previously wasteful earmarks that we have highlighted, like $16.9 million for the economically challenged Delaware River deepening project, and the millions for so-called Environmental Infrastructure projects that have been opposed by the Clinton, Bush, and up until now, Obama administrations,' the group said in a statement released on Wednesday. Dredging crews already have deepened about 17 miles of the river between the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal and the Fox Point area. Most of that work was funded by the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, the project's private sponsor. Federal rules oblige the authority to pay 35 percent of the deepening cost. Edward Voigt, spokesman for the Corps' Philadelphia regional office, said Wednesday that federal engineers are lining up the next phase but that the specific portion of the river has not yet been decided. 'I know that, in general, our next contract as far as I know is going to be to the north end,' Voigt said. Sections to the north include a rocky-bottomed section of river that will require blasting to deepen the channel. Conservation groups have fought the plan for years, arguing that benefits will fall far short of taxpayer costs and do environmental harm to aquatic life, water quality and other natural resources. Those criticisms and skeptical reports from the Government Accountability Office stymied some attempts to set aside taxpayer funds for the project in recent years. Corps officials have repeatedly updated their cost-benefit studies since Congress first authorized the project in 1992. Although oil refineries were initially expected to realize the majority of shipping savings, their importance has waned with recent production cuts and closings. Ships carrying containerized freight, fruits and vegetables and bulk cargos are now cited as the project's main beneficiaries in Corps forecasts. Those sectors have been targeted both by the Port of Wilmington and by Philadelphia, where Pennsylvania hopes to develop a massive new 'Southport' container complex near the former naval shipyard. A few environmental and procedural disputes remain. The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals is considering a challenge filed by New Jersey and environmental groups based on claims the Corps failed to comply with environmental and administrative review and approval requirements before starting work. Delaware also challenged the Corps over environmental permitting and administrative shortcomings, but declined to appeal when the U.S. District Court for Delaware refused to block the work. Still to come are new protection demands for the Atlantic sturgeon, which was recently placed on the endangered species list. The huge fish was once found in the hundreds of thousands along the Delaware. Van Rossum said that environmental groups will fight to assure protection for every remaining sturgeon. Voigt said that steps already have been taken. 'We've been treating the Atlantic sturgeon as endangered [in deepening plans] for over a year,' Voigt said.

The final 4 of a group of 6 Delaware Air National Guard members who were deployed to Kuwait have returned home.

A dusting is shown on bicycles lined up at an apartment complex this morning on Delaware Avenue in Newark.