DELAWARE RIVER WATERSHED — An extensive list of nature, environment and land preservation organizations in the Delaware River watershed will share a $35 million grant from the William Penn Foundation (WPF) aimed at protecting high-quality water resources and restoring water quality where needed. Over 15 million people rely on the watershed as their source of drinking water.

In the upper reaches of the watershed, the foundation has awarded more than $1.7 million to support a group of eight organizations working in Sullivan and Orange counties in New York, Sussex County in New Jersey and Monroe and Pike counties and a small part of Wayne County in Pennsylvania. These organizations working in the so-named “Pocono Kittatinny Cluster” include the Delaware Highlands Conservancy, the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, the Pocono Heritage Land Trust, the Natural Lands Trust, the Nature Conservancy (Pennsylvania field office), Trust for Public Land (New Jersey field office), Brodhead Watershed Association and East Stroudsburg University.

Working in collaboration, these organizations will target land protection, outreach to landowners, land-use planning and regulatory reform, public outreach on open space stewardship and water quality monitoring to assess the impact of land protection activities.

Seven other downstream sub-watershed clusters with dozens of local organizations also will share the $35 million grant.