By DAVID HULSE

NARROWSBURG - Some Upper Delaware Council (UDC) delegates are concerned that a planned National Park Service (NPS) Upper Delaware visitor center in Mongaup will turn out to be larger than what was promised.

Phil Chase of Deerpark and George Frosch of Hancock questioned NPS Superintendent Cal Hite last week about the need for $900,000 in planning and design funding. Chase recalled that the initial estimate given by former Superintendent John Hutzky was $800,000 for everything. "This doesn't sound small," Chase said.

The center would be built on land leased from New York State, which Frosch helped arrange. He recalled his efforts in convincing then state Senator Charles Cook to assist in the approvals and said the project today is "vastly different" than the one he sold to the senator. "The word 'shock' comes to mind," he added.

Hite said the planning money would only be used as needed. "No one's going to spend $900,000 for the sake of spending it," he said.

Hite said the state has placed a 10,000-square-foot limitation on the center. He said he had no idea where the initial $800,000 estimate came from but the current price, determined by NPS planners, is some $7 million. "That $800,000 figure was 12 or 13 years ago...We had a $2 million estimate on the Roebling Bridge and I think that's up to $6 or $7 million now. Prices do change," he said.

Allan Bowers of Westfall took another tack. "Does someone object to having $900,000 spent in the river valley?"

"Yes, I object," Chase said. He has repeatedly expressed concern that the nearly pristine Mongaup area, which comprises a wintering area for bald eagles, could easily become overused if too much traffic is drawn there.

In other business at their September 7 monthly meeting, the UDC approved a letter to Delaware River Basin and New York City authorities asking that sufficient upstream reservoir releases be assured during the ongoing September draw-down of Lake Wallenpaupack. Officials were concerned that a good deal of the required river volume at Montague, NJ, usually supplied from upstream reservoir releases, would now be coming from the Lackawaxen River, thus leaving reaches of the Delaware above the Lackawaxen under-watered.

State and city officials have tentatively agreed on measures allowing additional "stress bank" releases to protect the fish from rising water temperatures, but have not finalized the action.