The Susquehanna River Basin Commission Thursday held its quarterly business meeting in Binghamton, N.Y. Among its actions, SRBC:

-- recognized retiring Executive Director Paul Swartz for his nearly 22 years of service;

-- appointed Andrew Dehoff as incoming Executive Director;

-- approved 18 water withdrawal applications, including one into-basin diversion, tabled 8 applications, rescinded 3 previously approved dockets (see lists below); and

-- delegated certain regulatory matters to the executive director.

SRBC’s voting commissioners and alternates were: Brig. General Kent Savre, SRBC Chair and Commanding General and Division Engineer, North Atlantic Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Kenneth Lynch, SRBC Vice Chair and Director, Region 7, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation; Kelly Heffner, Deputy Secretary for Water Management, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection; and Dr. Robert Summers, Secretary, Maryland Department of the Environment.

SRBC also reported on the Whitney Point Adaptive Management Plan (AMP). SRBC, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and others established a water management and environmental restoration project at Whitney Point Lake in Broome County, N.Y.

The restoration project provides for environmental releases from the lake to augment low flow conditions downstream in the Otselic, Tioughnioga, Chenango, and ultimately, Susquehanna Rivers. Project monitoring began in 2008. The AMP for the project, which describes the goals and sampling design of the overall restoration plan, is re-evaluated every year to make sure the project goals are being met.

A list of individual project actions is available online.

9/23/2013