Is the Flexible Flow Management Program (FFMP) in limbo?

It’s Sunday, July 25, 1972; the Yankee game had just stared. The phone rang, and colleague Ed was on the line: “Tony, you have to come over here; I’m at Boucheaux Brook and there are hundreds of trout off the mouth. The Delaware is 86°F.”

I was off in minutes, grabbing a camera on the way. At the time both Ed and I worked for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Ed was a fisheries technician; I’m a fisheries biologist. That day, I photographed the trout using a polarized filter on my 35mm camera. From Boucheaux, we checked the mouths of Basket Brook and Equinunk Creek on the PA side. Large numbers of trout were gathered at the mouths of both tributaries. We also took water temperatures. Next morning, I documented those conditions, and forwarded them to the DEC Region 3 director, asking that he contact the City of New York (NYC) and request that it release enough water from its reservoirs to help lower water temperatures in the river. We also made the DEC Region 4 fisheries unit aware of the situation, since parts of the Delaware River are in that region.

That request was denied. The summer releases at the time were 19 cubic feet per second (cfs) at Pepacton and 23 cfs Cannonsville. Pitiful amounts of water!

At the outset, there was not a lot of support in the agency to pressure the NYC to release more water. So I made up a slide series that documented the conditions we found and presented it at the local chapters of Trout Unlimited, Theodore Gordon Fly Fishers, and County Sportsmen’s Federations. Support began to build.

In the fall of 1973, Frank Mele began Catskill Waters, a citizens’ organization founded to pressure the state and city to rectify the abominable releases from Catskill Reservoirs. It took almost five years, but after lot of negotiating and arm twisting, the Water Releases Legislation was signed into law. Part 671 mandated NYC to increase summer flows from Pepacton to 70 to 95 cfs, Cannonsville to 160 cfs and Neversink to 53 cfs. These were significant increases, and the fisheries responded dramatically. Over time, modeling studies supported further increases, and in 2007 the FFMP was adopted. This plan increased normal summer flows from Pepacton to 140 cfs, from Cannonsville to 350 cfs and from Neversink of 100 cfs. To continue, that plan has to be unanimously ratified by New York State, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York City, and so far they have only been willing to do so one year at a time.

But now, it looks like they won’t even do that, and the FFMP is in jeopardy of reverting to Revision 1 at the beginning of June. Revision 1 allows for only 70 cfs at Pepacton; and for Cannonsville 45 cfs from June 1 to 15, 325 cfs from June 16 to August 15; and 45 cfs thereafter.

Those flows are significantly lower than those provided by the FFMP. And under Revision 1 it is entirely possible that fish kills will result in the West Branch and Main Stem Delaware due to high summer temperatures and low releases from Cannonsville from June 1 to 15.

As a fisheries professional involved with Delaware River water release issues since 1972, I find it troubling and disappointing that after so many years, the affected rivers could return to 1976 flow regimens should the FFMP not be ratified. Whatever their internal squabbles, it’s time for all parties to agree and ratify the FFMP, a program that embodies improvements that have enhanced the Delaware system aesthetically, economically, and recreationally for the last 45 years.

[Tony Bonavist is a retired New York State Department of Environmental Conservation biologist, and writes a column titled “Ramblings of a Catskill Flyfisher” for The River Reporter.]