River organizations send top officials to region

Task force to draft temporary flood mitigation measures by year’s end; long-range plan to follow

By SANDY LONG

DELAWARE RIVER REGION — Two women holding top posts with influential Delaware River-related organizations recently visited the Upper Delaware region to address officials concerning issues related to flooding.

On October 5, Carol Collier, executive director of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), addressed members of the Upper Delaware Council at their monthly meeting. Six days later, Delaware Riverkeeper Maya K. van Rossum, director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network (DRN), spoke at the Pike County Commissioners’ meeting on October 11.

As a result of severe main stem flooding of the Delaware River basin in September 2004, April 2005 and June 2006, both organizations have intensified efforts to address flood-related matters.

DRBC’s Collier shares welcome news

The pressing need for a comprehensive plan to mitigate flooding impacts along the 330-mile Delaware River and its tributaries has prompted the four river basin states—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware—to join forces and to take decisive action.

The agency through which these efforts will be coordinated is the DRBC, which has been charged with establishing an interstate task force to recommend comprehensive flood mitigation measures for the Delaware Basin, announced Collier.

The task force will also consider storm water management, land-use patterns, open space and farmland preservation, floodplain regulations and other non-structural flood mitigation measures throughout the basin.

The DRBC will seek a preliminary action plan by year’s end to enable implementation as early as possible in 2007.

A recent letter to Collier, signed by the four state governors, concluded, “The DRBC is the obvious vehicle for developing flood loss reduction and flood mitigation plans that cannot be accomplished by any single state or local government, but that require a holistic watershed approach.”

In addition, the DRBC is tasked with establishing a “temporary spill mitigation program” for the New York City reservoirs—Neversink, Pepacton and Cannonsville—which provide drinking water to residents of NYC and its suburbs. The interim program is expected to terminate in May 2007 with the adoption of a new year-round management program including a spill mitigation component.

The DRBC will receive $500,000 from the four states to develop a flood analysis model to evaluate the potential for managing reservoirs throughout the basin to reduce flooding. The model is expected to be completed within 18 months.

The efforts are aimed at developing a better means of minimizing flood impacts throughout the Delaware River region.

Delaware RiverKeeper’s van Rossum urges increased advocacy

In Milford, PA, van Rossum answered questions and offered information to Pike County Commissioners and members of the press and public. After placing her infant son, Wim, into commissioner Harry Forbes’s outstretched arms, van Rossum addressed key issues affecting the river, such as gravel removal from creek beds, the management of reservoir releases, the impacts of river discharges such as sewage and VX nerve agent waste and the highly controversial New York Regional Interconnect power transmission project.

According to van Rossum, the United States Army has proposed the dumping of VX nerve agent waste into the Delaware River following treatment at the Dupont Chemical Company in Deepwater, NJ. The process would require trucking the hazardous material from an Indiana facility across three states on public highways daily for up to three years. The DRN’s position on this issue is that, “Dumping it amounts to a scientific experiment that threatens the residents and environment of Delaware, Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey and all life in the river, bay and ultimately, the ocean.”

van Rossum also warned against continuing to build in flood plains and urged alternatives to the placement of sewage treatment plants in such zones. She encouraged the Pike County Commissioners to pass resolutions addressing each of the issues under discussion, and offered sample resolutions available through the DRN.