The Delaware River Basin Commission’s 2017 Annual Report-- Value Throughout the Year-- is now available.

The report emphasizes DRBC's efforts and results to improve water quality and to provide a reliable water supply to the approximately 15 million people regionally who are affected by the use, conservation, and management of the basin’s water resources.

Through the DRBC, the basin states and federal government continue to collectively manage this shared resource effectively together.

Here is the opening message of DRBC Executive Director Steve Tambini, P.E., in this year’s report--

 The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) plays a unique role as the interstate and federal government agency charged since 1961 with managing the Basin’s water resources.

Through the DRBC, the states of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and the federal government have built an exceptional record of results to improve water quality and to provide a sustainable water supply.

This report highlights DRBC’s 2017 contributions to the quality of life and prosperity of the approximately 15 million people regionally who are affected by the use, conservation, management and control of the Basin’s water resources.

In the area of water supply, the Commission staff worked intensively through 2017 to provide the basin states and New York City with the technical support required to update and improve the “Flexible Flow Management Program” (FFMP) that governs flow objectives, reservoir releases and major diversions outside of the basin (see page 14.)

The FFMP balances the diverse and sometimes competing demands on the basin’s waters for public water supply, aquatic life, recreation, waste assimilation, agriculture, and industrial and commercial activities.

And to ensure that these needs are balanced, the Commission provides the public with opportunities for input on how basin operations affect them. As a result of meetings of the DRBC Regulated Flow Advisory Committee (RFAC)(page 30), stakeholder recommendations and strategies were integrated into the 2017 FFMP.

The Commission’s work in the area of water quality this year merits a spotlight. Central to the “origin story” of the DRBC is the recognition that coordinated action was required to address excessive pollution in the shared, industrialized portions of the Delaware River Estuary near Philadelphia, Camden and Wilmington.

At the time DRBC was created, a 30-mile reach of the Estuary was so polluted that, for several months each summer, fish could not pass through it due to the complete lack of dissolved oxygen in this heavily used waterway.

Fast forward from 1961 to 2017... Transformative improvements in the water quality of the River, the Estuary and Delaware Bay are attracting notice.

The DRBC has consistently taken a leading role in this transformation – combining water quality monitoring, scientific analysis, and modeling skills with the convening power and rulemaking authority required to: establish wasteload allocations (or pollution budgets) for discharges in three states, develop and establish interstate water quality standards in interstate waters, restore impaired water quality in the Estuary and Bay, and protect exceptional water quality in the non-tidal river.

In 2017, Delaware River fisheries surveys for American shad showed a healthy spawning run and a record setting number of juveniles.

Based upon these and other positive study results, the DRBC Commissioners in September formally recognized the substantial water quality and fisheries restoration achieved in the Estuary and Bay.

The accomplishments of the past nearly six decades would not have been possible, they noted, without innovative DRBC initiatives in allocating carbonaceous oxygen demand, establishing water quality criteria for toxic contaminants, and requiring dischargers to develop and implement pollutant minimization plans for PCB’s, the persistent and highly toxic chemicals that accumulate in fish tissue.

To continue this record of leadership and achievement, the Commission also launched an ambitious effort to measure the feasibility of reducing nitrogenous oxygen demand and to determine the extent to which further elevating dissolved oxygen criteria would result in an even stronger recovery of Estuary fish populations.

DRBC is leading this groundbreaking effort through a collaborative process informed by expert scientists and engineers, and in close consultation with its Water Quality Advisory Committee (page 31), a group representing state and federal co-regulators, NGO’s, academic institutions, municipal and industrial dischargers, and water purveyors.

It is difficult to overstate the value of clean water to the economy of our region and the quality of life of its residents.

A 2011 study by the University of Delaware’s Dr. Gerald J. Kauffman estimated the economic value of the water resources of the Delaware River Basin at more than $20 billion.

Visit “Basin Information” on the DRBC website to read this study for yourself, or witness the resurgence of waterfront development activity in Camden, Philadelphia, and Wilmington; experience the abundant fishing, paddling, hiking, strolling, birdwatching, camping, dining and other river-focused recreational opportunities throughout the Basin; or watch the thousands of mature shad migrating upstream to spawn in the spring or their young swimming downstream in late summer.

Through the DRBC, the basin states and federal government continue to collectively manage this shared resource effectively together.

Turn the pages of this annual report for more examples of the Delaware River Basin Commission’s ongoing activities, results and leadership in ensuring the continued health and sustainability of our Basin’s water resources.

Click Here for a copy of the report.

For more information on programs, initiatives and upcoming events, visit the Delaware River Basin Commission website.  Click Here to sign up for regulator updates.  Follow DRBC on Twitter.  Visit them on YouTube.

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[Posted: April 10, 2018]

4/16/2018