By DAVID HULSE

NARROWSBURG - They may call it a natural wonder, but the Delaware River in reality is more like a series of big interconnected bathtubs with all the drains open and dozens of different, sometimes unrelated valves coming on and off to keep the water at the proper level.

"The whole process is so complicated, it's almost impossible to explain it," Jeffrey Featherstone admitted last Thursday evening.

The deputy executive director of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) had been explaining the latest complication in the system, a request for usage credits from Pennsylvania Power and Light (PP&L), to the Upper Delaware Council.

PP&L ordinarily pays DRBC for five or six million gallons of water evaporated daily during the hydroelectric process.

The DRBC pays the utilities along the watershed for releases of water during drought conditions.

PP&L wants credit toward its hydroelectric costs in exchange for drought releases and they have conducted studies of earlier drought situations to support the fiscal savings to DRBC.

The problem is that PP&L is part of a consortium of utilities that have a number of sites, other than Lake Wallenpaupack where they make power. They want to decide where they will release the extra water and some members of the Upper Delaware Council have been concerned that if Wallenpaupack is the location of choice, the Upper Delaware will suffer.

The issue is the first drain, so to speak, the Montague gauge, where by order of the U.S. Supreme Court, New York City has to guarantee a regular flow from its upstream reservoirs (1750 cubic feet per second in normal conditions). The Deputy River Master regulates these flows to maintain the minimum.

PP&L has been doing maintenance work on the Wallenpaupack works this fall and has been releasing an additional 600 to 700 cfs to the Lackawaxen River while they lower the level of the lake.

Other than in drought conditions, the utilities releases have never been part of the planned "flow regime." If downstream Wallenpaupack releases large quantities of water on a regulated basis, upstream observers are concerned that New York City will cut back releases, impacting the temperature and height of the upper river. Sportsmen say that action would impact the popular cold-water fisheries and the local sport fishing industry dependent on it.

Featherstone said it is possible that Wallenpaupack releases could be used to make the minimum flow requirement at the next tub drain, the Trenton gauge, where another flow minimum is required. That would essentially require that the extra 600 or 700 cfs be ignored at Montague, which would in effect raise the normal conditions water level in the river, south of Lackawaxen.

These are all normal weather condition scenarios. The actual flows are impacted by drought and a number of 'banked" flows triggered by various conditions and times of the year. "It's very complicated," Featherstone reiterated.

The DRBC will have the final say one way or another. They and the utilities will talk about the credit proposal over the next six or eight months, Featherstone said.