Connecticut interests continued Tuesday to hail the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear an appeal of an appellate court’s decision upholding the designation of an eastern Long Island Sound disposal site for dredged materials.

The decision is considered crucial to Connecticut’s maritime economy, with Electric Boat, the Connecticut Port Authority, the Connecticut Harbor Management Association, Cross Sound Ferry and others having expressed support for the disposal site, Attorney General William Tong noted in a press release.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had found that without dredging, the ability to launch and build submarines in Groton "would be eliminated," Tong said.

“Today’s decision ends years of litigation and delay over a matter vitally important to Connecticut’s maritime economy,” he said Monday. “Thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in revenue rely on the ability to dredge and safely deposit materials. The Eastern Long Island site was selected after exhaustive review and public input. It’s well past time to get this work underway,”

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, allowed to intervene in the State of New York’s case against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, defended the EPA’s 2016 selection of a disposal site on the edge of the maritime border between Connecticut and New York and 2.3 nautical miles upstream from the western coast of Fishers Island.

A U.S. district judge in the Eastern District of New York first upheld the selection in a July 2020 decision that prompted the Town of Southold, on Long Island, to appeal. The town also had been allowed to intervene in the case.

A 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed the district court’s decision last September and then denied Southold’s petition for a review by the full appellate court in November. That led Southold to ask in February that the Supreme Court review the appellate court’s ruling. On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to issue a writ of certiorari, in effect declining to take up the case.

“This is the outcome we’ve been waiting for to protect southeastern Connecticut’s maritime economy and the Long Island Sound region,” U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said in a statement Monday. “... The prolonged legal fight over this issue has only created uncertainty for our ports, harbors, marinas, and our region’s submarine industrial base.”

Ulysses Hammond, executive director of the Connecticut Port Authority, which is overseeing the transformation of State Pier in New London into a wind energy hub, also applauded the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Southold’s appeal.

“This is a pivotal decision, especially to the small harbors of our municipalities, who can now proceed with dredging projects with greater environmentally protected coastal management certainty and cost control," he said in a statement.

Stan Mickus, director of public affairs for Cross Sound Ferry, added “The Supreme Court’s decision is crucial to maintaining the economic and environmental viability of maritime commerce on Long Island Sound, which is more important now than ever.”

EB, the Groton submarine-builder, had no comment, according to a spokesman.

In petitioning the Supreme Court, Southold said the EPA estimated that more than 20 million cubic yards of dredged material will be disposed at the site over a 30-year period, with the material “largely originating from contaminated industrial areas around the submarine base and related manufacturing facilities near Groton and New London.”

The town alleged that use of the site, “particularly at the scale anticipated,” posed environmental risks “and the creation of a public nuisance for the hamlet of Fishers Island and the surrounding islands and marine environments in the Town of Southold.”

b.hallenbeck@theday.com