Another view of
a complicated issue

John Hutzky, in his recent guest editorial, stated that the 34-year-old Wild and Scenic Rivers Act needs to be invoked to protect the waters of the Upper Delaware River.

Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than that. A lot happened in the legal arena before the 1968 Act was passed, and a lot has happened since.

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decree establishing a schedule of releases from New York City’s three water supply reservoirs located at the Delaware’s headwaters. The intent was to ensure an adequate supply of water for the three down-basin states—Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, as well as the city.

The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) inherited the decree when the commission was formed in 1961. Since then, it has worked hard to protect the river within the constraints set by the high court and by the Delaware River Basin Compact, the binding legal document that created the commission and set forth its powers. The compact allows permanent modifications to the decree formula only with the consent of New York City.

The commission also helped craft the Scenic Rivers legislation. When it was enacted in 1968, New York City’s only obligation was to release enough water from its reservoirs to meet a certain flow target at Montague, NJ. Since then, far from weakening ecological safeguards, the commission has helped to put in place special programs to protect the fisheries.

During the record drought of the 1960s, it became painfully apparent that the Supreme Court had unwittingly been too generous in splitting up the basin’s water pie—there wasn’t enough water for everyone during droughts.

At the commission’s urging, the decree parties (New York State, the city, and the three down-basin states) assembled and made mid-course corrections to the court’s water diversion and flow formulas. Their proposed amendments to the decree are contained in a document which became known as the Good Faith Agreement. 

Between 1983 and 1988, the commission altered the decree requirements by enacting rules to implement the Good Faith recommendations for modifying flow targets and diversions during periods of drought. Alterations included creation of a thermal stress bank and augmented releases to protect the world class trout fishery in the reservoirs’ tail races.

The current drought merely underscores what we already realize—that the existing programs are not sufficient. The DRBC is engaged in a $400,000 study of flows on the Delaware River and tributaries in an effort to develop a flow regime that better addresses all the competing uses on the river—tubing, boating, fishing, swimming, commerce, water supply.

Mr. Hutzky, who served as the National Park Service’s superintendent of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River for 16 years, should be saluted for his enduring efforts to protect a river he came to love.

Local residents fearful of a federal land grab hanged him in effigy from a manure spreader shortly after his arrival in the valley in 1979. But his honest and open management style, and his early realization that local involvement was key to the success of any management plan, won him trust and respect.

The DRBC acknowledges the continuing challenges faced in managing the waters of the Upper Delaware. It also is determined to continue to work with the decree parties, the park service, the Upper Delaware Council, the fishermen and merchants who depend on the river for a living and others to come up with solutions that balance competing uses.

How those solutions are viewed ultimately will depend, at least in a small part, on whether you’re flicking a dry fly onto a deep pool on the West Branch or managing the water supply for the nation’s largest city.

Guest editorial by Carol R. Collier, Executive Director
Delaware River Basin Commission