At the very close of an otherwise routine February 16 meeting of the Regulated Flow Advisory Committee of the Delaware River Basin Commission, New Jersey’s representative, Steven Domber, read a startling announcement that because New Jersey’s disputes with the other parties to the 1954 Supreme Court decree that governs the allocation of the Delaware’s waters have not been resolved, New Jersey will not agree to an extension of the current Flexible Flow Management Program (FFMP) when it expires in June of this year.

Under the rules of the 1961 Delaware River Compact, all five parties to the Supreme Court decree—the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and New York City—must agree to any changes in the Delaware’s water release and usage policies. Failing such an agreement on an extension or modification of the FFMP, management of the river would revert to the last permanent operating rules, the so-called DRBC Revision 1 of 1983. The dilemma for the environment of the Upper Delaware is that Revision 1 would be much worse than the current FFMP, which had been forcefully advocated for and partially designed by the fishing/environmental community.

For example, as I write, the current release into the West Branch of the Delaware from the Cannonsville reservoir stands at 85 cubic feet per second (cfs), while under Revision 1 the release would drop to 33 cubic feet. At such a low flow, the riverbanks and beds where the Delaware’s wild trout have already spawned would be exposed, leading to potential loss of the next year’s trout hatch, and the aquatic habitat in which the trout’s main food source develops. And this is but one of many ways in which the environment of the upper river would suffer under a return to Revision 1.

But much as the Delaware’s environment and its magnificent trout would suffer, there are other possibly dire consequences to reverting to Revision 1. For instance, the FFMP includes a program of special springtime “spill mitigation” releases, which are designed to create safety voids behind the reservoirs that could potentially diminish the impact of floods in the Delaware River Valley. Ironically, the spill mitigation releases were included in the FFMP in no small part as a result of the petitions of New Jersey and Pennsylvania victims of past Delaware floods. Even more ironically: currently, even when the system as a whole goes into drought, diversions to New Jersey are not reduced—a singular privilege the state won in 2011, and will forfeit under Revision 1.

What is the underlying problem here? This is essentially an economic dispute between New Jersey on the one hand and the other decree parties, particularly New York City, on the other, about the amount of water that each can divert from the Delaware for out-of-basin uses (see my op-ed “New Jersey says ‘Hell, no’” in the April 21, 2016 issue.) The long-run economic stakes are potentially enormous. New York City depends on Delaware water for half of its water supply, and more than that in periods following storms when its other supplies of water in the Catskills tend to run muddy. New Jersey’s demands, if met, would diminish New York City’s water rights. On its side, New Jersey is running short of water and wants to divert more from the Delaware, thereby avoiding having to invest in its own water infrastructure. Adding to the political complexity, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania are concerned about the implications of New Jersey’s desire for additional Delaware water. 

All in all, it appears that in the long run, billions of dollars are at stake and the parties can’t seem to agree, or even to negotiate. In the meantime, the environment of the Upper Delaware stands to suffer.

[Peter Kolesar is a Columbia University professor emeritus, and participated in the development of the math behind the current Flexible Flow Management Plan, which governs reservoir releases into the Upper Delaware River, as well as advocacy for it. He is a resident of Eldred, NY.]