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A River Bounces Back
Years before there was an E.P.A., or a federal Clean Water Act, or even an environmental movement, a little government agency was hard at work restoring life to one of America's most polluted rivers.
Today, 36 years later, the clean-up of the Delaware is hailed as one of the world's top water quality success stories.
A pioneer in environmental protection, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) got its start on October 27, 1961, the day the Delaware River Basin Compact became law. The Compact's signing marked the first time since the nation's birth that the federal government and a group of states joined together as equal partners in a river basin planning, development and regulatory agency.
When the DRBC was created, some 43 state agencies, 14 interstate agencies, and 19 federal agencies exercised a multiplicity of splintered powers and duties within the watershed. The Compact created a regional body with the force of law to oversee a unified approach to managing the river system without regard to political boundaries.
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The lower Delaware was an open sewer at the height of World War II. Along some reaches the fouled water was devoid of the oxygen needed to support fish and other aquatic life. A major goal in those early days was to bring the river back to life.
Blazing a new trail in water pollution abatement, the DRBC in 1967 adopted the most comprehensive water quality standards of any interstate river basin in the nation. The standards were tied to an innovative waste load allocation program that factored in the waste assimilative capacity of the tidal Delaware River.
A year later the DRBC adopted regulations for implementing and enforcing the standards, prompting the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration to observe: "This is the only place in the country where such a procedure is being followed. Hopefully, it will provide a model for other regulatory agencies."
The clean-up of the Delaware and numerous other DRBC accomplishments over three-and-a-half decades are rooted in the Compact's chief canon: that the waters and related resources of the Delaware River Basin are regional assets vested with local, state, and national interests for which there is a joint responsibility.
A look now at some of those other accomplishments and at milestones that mark the path of progress over the past 36 years:
* 1962 - The DRBC approves its first Comprehensive Plan which includes a dozen multi-purpose reservoir projects, including Tocks Island, a giant impoundment planned for the Delaware River main stem.
* 1965 - The DRBC declares a state of water supply emergency and unleashes a fundamental tenet of the Compact - to settle water disputes through an administrative process. The DRBC's role is pivotal in negotiating successful, out-of-court policy on emergency water allocations.
* 1966 - The DRBC publishes its Delaware River Recreation Maps, with instantly become as popular as paddles with canoeists. The maps are updated in 1979 and 1991.
* 1968 - The Commission sets national precedent in its water pollution abatement campaign, adopting regulations to implement water quality standards for the Delaware Estuary that are tied to an innovative wasteload allocation program.
* 1971 - Construction of Beltzville Reservoir at the headwaters of the Lehigh River is completed at a cost of $23 million. Releases from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' impoundment (plus releases from Blue Marsh Reservoir, then under construction) help improve stream flows, enhance water quality, and protect fisheries.
* 1973 - The DRBC adopts a regulation requiring metering of customer connections of new, major water supply systems, kicking off a water conservation campaign years before it becomes fashionable with other agencies.
* 1975 - In a split vote, DRBC commissioners recommend that Congress not appropriate funds for the construction of the Tocks Island Dam project, knocking the keystone out of the Commission's blueprint for long-range water management.
* 1976 - The DRBC completes flood plain mapping for 119 municipalities, helping them to qualify for federal flood insurance. Flood plain mapping is completed for 32 additional communities in ensuing years.
* 1977 - DRBC regulations take effect to restrict development in the 100-year flood plain and prohibit development in the floodway.
* 1978 - Two reaches of the Delaware River totalling 107 miles are added to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The DRBC helps draft the enabling federal legislation.
* 1981 - Fred Lewis, who operates the only commercial shad fishery on the non-tidal Delaware River, nets 6,392 shad -- the biggest catch since 1896. The return of this popular game fish is linked directly to water quality improvement.
* 1981 - The Level B Study, part of a planning process to guide the Commission in reformulating its long-range master plan in view of the Tocks Island decision, is released. Water conservation is a keystone of the program, which also recommends enlarging existing reservoirs to bolster water supply storage.
* 1983 - After four years of intense deliberations, the Interstate Water Management ("Good Faith") Report is approved. It makes mid-course corrections to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decree that apportioned the waters of the Delaware and lays the framework for a drought operating plan. The plan is used successfully during two water supply emergencies in the 1980s.
* 1985 - The DRBC adopts a basinwide well registration program, an integral component of its rapidly expanding ground water management campaign.
* 1985 - Construction begins on Merrill Creek Reservoir, designed to provide make-up water for riverbank electric generating plants during low flow conditions on the Delaware. The Commission directed in-basin electrical utilities to build the $217 million impoundment or face cutbacks during droughts. It became operational in 1988.
* 1986 - The Commission's water conservation program hits full stride with adoption of regulations requiring the source metering of large water withdrawals. In the next six years the adoption of additional regulations and programs establishes the DRBC as an international leader in the water conservation arena.
* 1987 - Over 56,000 Delaware River shad are landed during a nine-week period between Hancock, N.Y., and Yardley, Pa., generating an estimated $1.6 million in recreational dollars.
* 1988 -The Delaware Bay and tidal reach of the Delaware River are added to the National Estuary Program, a project set up to protect estuarine systems of national significance.
* 1989 - A Pennsylvania state record is broken when a 53-pound, 13-ounce striped bass is caught in the Delaware River off Chester, Pa. A year later a New Jersey state record falls when a 38-pound, four-ounce muskellunge is caught in the Delaware River near the Delaware Water Gap.
* 1992 - The DRBC adopts special regulations to protect the existing high water quality of the Delaware's two "Scenic River" reaches.
* 1993 - Working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the DRBC completes flood stage forecast mapping for a 65-mile reach of the Delaware River from Belvidere, N.J. downstream to Trenton.
* 1995 - A DRBC sponsored project designed to prevent or reduce Delaware River flooding in the Port Jervis, N.Y., area is completed.
* 1995 - As it has for over three decades, the Commission plays host to delegations from foreign countries as part of an informal program to help friends overseas solve water-related problems. Delegations from Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Jordan, South Korea, the People's Republic of China, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Italy, Brazil, the former Soviet Union, Sweden, Uruguay, India, Japan, Slovokia, Romania, and the Western Ukraine have toured the basin and visited the DRBC's offices over the years.
* 1995 - Over a half million shad swim up the Delaware to spawn.
* 1996 - The DRBC adopts regulations to control the discharge of substances from wastewater treatment plants that are toxic to humans and aquatic life in the tidal portions of the Delaware River.
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