The scoop on why deeper port channels are critical to N.J., N.Y.

By Hugh R. Morley, The Record, Hackensack, N.J. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Feb. 6--Twelve hours a day, Mac Oldham sits in a glass-walled cockpit suspended 20 feet above the frigid waters of the Hudson River, helping shape the economic future of the New York region.

Studying a colored map on a computer monitor to his left, he grips a joystick topped with buttons in each hand as though playing a video game.

He shifts his right hand and a massive mechanical arm in front of him plunges into the freezing green river. Another shift and the 15-foot high claw at the end of the arm tears into the river bed sending a violent shudder through Oldham's rig.

One more shift, a touch on the left-hand joystick, and the claw scoops up 17 tons of silt, rock, sand and water from the river bottom and dumps it into an adjacent rusting iron barge.

The scoop -- which takes place every 39 seconds on a good day -- is the leading edge of a massive dredging project that authorities say is key to giving New York and New Jersey ports a competitive edge for decades to come.

The 12-year, two-phase project will widen and deepen port navigation channels off Newark, Elizabeth and Brooklyn, making them accessible to the world's largest ships.

Though the price tag for the job is a whopping $1.63 billion, experts say the cost of not dredging would be higher: as global trade booms, the ships would go elsewhere, …