HANCOCK, NY — Constructing and funding a plan to manage and restore the tributaries of the Upper Delaware watershed, promoting water releases to avert thermal emergencies that threaten trout, a fairer apportionment of water releases from the New York City (NYC) reservoirs and improving transparency in water-release decision-making were among the focuses of the Friends of the Upper Delaware River’s (FUDR) fifth annual Water, Water Everywhere (WWE) conference, held two days last week at the West Branch Angler Resort.

A plan to manage tributaries

Graydon Dutcher, stream program coordinator for the Delaware County Soil and Water Conservation District, kicked off the conference discussing a stream corridor management plan that is currently in use for the upper reaches of the tailwaters, above the NYC dams. Having such a plan enables stakeholders to be proactive rather than reactive, averting or mitigating flood damage or deterioration of habitat before it occurs and allowing for rapid, sensible response should it occur.

There is currently no similar plan for the waters below the dams. The William Penn Foundation has recently committed $35 million to developing and implementing protection plans for a group of eight sub-watershed clusters in the Delaware River basin, but the northernmost cluster (Pocono-Kittatinny) ends at Cochecton. And, as FUDR Executive Director Jeff Skelding noted, care of the area around and above the dams is also well funded, being the New York City watershed. This leaves a gap between the dams and Cochecton on the Main Stem without funding for protection and restoration.

Exploring the possibility of getting such funding was the focus on the second day, which featured presentations by representatives of groups that are either funding Upper Delaware River protection and restoration programs, or implementing plans that have been funded. Presenters included Nathan Boon, program officer of William Penn, who discussed the foundation’s watershed protection program, and Sue Currier of the Delaware Highlands Conservancy, who discussed a plan currently under way to purchase the Long Eddy river access and hand it over to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) for improvement.

Thermal stress

Another concern addressed at the conference was the stress on trout in the upper river from Lordville to Hancock that occurs when temperatures are excessively high. Since 2012, FUDR and its allies have been trying unsuccessfully to get the Delaware River Basin Decree Parties (the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, and NYC) to agree to a mitigation plan developed by Peter Kolesar of Columbia University. Kolesar recapped his plan, which involves releasing small pulses of water, scientifically calculated to lower water temperatures at Lordville by a precise amount. He emphasized that there is ample evidence that sufficient water is available for this program: for instance, the current flow-management program already has a water bank of 9,423 cubic foot per second (cfs) days available to meet “special needs,” and in most summers significant amounts of that bank have not been used. And according to the NYC Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) statistics, actual releases have been 221 cfs below its own computation of water available.

Thermal stress was also addressed by Mark Hartle, aquatic resource section chief of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, who discussed water temperature data collected by his section, described a current thermal-release program being used on the Lackawaxen River in PA, and gave some suggestions as to how such a program could be implemented on the Delaware.

Among other conference highlights:

• Garth Pettinger of Trout Unlimited argued that water releases from the reservoirs should be more equitably apportioned; especially when the new Croton water treatment plant comes online in May of 2015, re-enabling use of the reservoir, which was taken offline in 2008 due to quality issues. It should deliver a minimum of 45 million gallons a day (mgd) to New York City, up to a possible 290 mgd, which Pettinger says should reduce the amount NYC draws from the Delaware system.

• Paul Rush, deputy commissioner of the NYC DEP, also discussed the Croton Reservoir and the issues in getting it online, as well as detailing several other major maintenance projects on the NYC water distribution system.

• Attendees peppered both Rush and Mark Klotz, director of the NYS DEC’s Division of Water, with questions and comments about what they feel is a lack of transparency, efficacy and responsiveness with which decisions are made about the Flexible Flow Management Plan (FFMP), the regime under which water releases are determined.

Skelding, when asked what he felt were the most important things to come out of the conference, said, “I’m more optimistic than ever that a thermal release program is possible and will be implemented; and I believe we did make an impression with regard to the importance of transparency in the FFMP.”