Environmental groups clash over river releases

Complexities muddy the waters

By FRITZ MAYER

UPPER DELAWARE VALLEY — With the competing aims of protecting fisheries and recreation, mitigating flooding and providing drinking water to large cities, new plans regarding releases from New York City reservoirs in the Catskills have divided members of the environmental community in the region.

The issue is complex and involves a host of governments, organizations, agreements and studies that each come with their own acronym. Currently, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) is considering the merits of a new plan, the Flexible Flow Management Plan (FFMP), which would regulate the releases from the reservoirs.

The plan has many components, but some of issues involved can be explained by looking at the proposed releases from the Cannonsville Reservoir into the West Branch, which would then flow into the Delaware River.

The FFMP calls for releasing 180 cubic feet per second (cfs) from the reservoir in May, and upping the releases to 250 cfs in the summer.

A group called The Conservation Coalition (CC), consisting of The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited. The Delaware River Foundation, Theodore Gordon Flyfishers and Columbia University, has put forward a plan called CP2, which would alter some of the release levels contained in the FFMP. For instance, with the CP2 plan, releases from Cannonsville would be increased from the proposed 180 to 250 cfs in May, and from 250 to 350 cfs in the summer.

Another group, called Friends of the Upper Delaware (FUDR), has attacked this plan as insufficient. FUDR has been calling for releases from the Cannonsville reservoir at 600 cfs from May through the summer.

Both groups say their plans will serve the interests of all parties who have a stake in reservoir releases, though the groups have used different methodologies in creating their plans. Indeed it’s not clear that the groups agree on some terminology.

For instance in a press released issue in February, FUDR said its plan is based on “historic releases and data recorded on United States Geological Survey (USGS) gauges showing that releases from Cannonsville from mid May through mid September exceeded 640 cfs on average over a 25-year period.”

Jim Serio, of CC, said this is not accurate. He said this represents “the flow” from the reservoir, which combines the amount of water released from the bottom of the reservoir, with the amount that falls over the spillway. Serio said the minimum release from the reservoir last summer was about 60 cfs, and under CP2 the minimum release would be 350 cfs. Serio said this is a significant improvement to protect the trout fishery and habitat in the Upper Delaware.

Both plans, however, would increase the amount of “drought days” that occur throughout the year. When the DRBC declares a drought day, New York City and other municipalities are restricted as to the amount of water that can be taken from the watershed.

Serio said the CP2 plan would increase the amount of drought days by about four percent, while the FUDR plan would increase the amount of drought days by 100 percent.

Representatives of the governors of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, as well as the New York City Department of Environmental Preservation (DEP) must unanimously agree to any new plan. Serio called the FUDR plan a “pipedream” because the DEP and down basin states would never agree to such a large increase in drought days.

FUDR, however, has said that even the CP2 call for 350 cfs release from the Cannonsville Reservoir is not acceptable because it would not keep water temperatures low enough to protect the trout fisheries in the upper part of the Delaware River.

For more information on the Conservation Coalition and CP2, go to www.drarp.org; for more information on the plan put forward by FUDR, go to www.fudr.org.