~ Water Resources Association ~

Water Resource Associations of the Delaware River Basin

Spring '06

Chairman's Message

Spring is a time of renewal and growth. From the spring religious holidays to the forsythia, tulips and Bradford pears as well as the April showers that will bring May flowers. As of this writing, however spring is looking on the dry side and concern is rising as we are close to raising drought watch conditions.

On April 11, 2006 the Sate of Pennsylvania issued a drought watch. On that day Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty put all 67 Pennsylvania counties under a drought watch and called on residents to voluntarily reduce water use by 5 percent. Two-thirds of Pennsylvania counties were 50 percent or more below their normal precipitation levels. The remaining counties are reporting a deficit of at least 25 percent. Near the end of April NJDEP was also sounding concern over the lack of precipitation. The chart of NY City Delaware Basin Storage available on the DRBC web site indicated as of April 20, 2006, storage was 4.5 billion gallons(1.69%) below the long term medium and 8.33 billion gallons below last years storage at this time.

I had the opportunity to sit in on the DRBC Water Management Advisory Committee meeting on April 19th, at which the WRA’s President Robert Molzahn is chair. DRBC and the USGS continue on two concurrent studies for Water Budget/Groundwater Availability Studies. The USGS Water Budget Study is available on their web site at http:/pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2005/5113/. This pilot study, done by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Delaware River Basin Commission, developed annual water budgets using available data for five watersheds in the Delaware River Basin with different degrees of urbanization and different geological settings. A basin water budget and a water-use budget were developed for each watershed. The second study –Groundwater Availability in the Delaware River Basin has been completed and is undergoing review by USGS and DRBC staff.

The WRA’s annual Recognition dinner is always a time for reflection and renewal. I would like to congratulate all of this year’s winners: Dennis Blair, National Weather Service, Preferred Real Estate Investments, Inc, Robert G. Traver, Ph.D, Janet L. Bowers, P.G. and the Riverfront Development Corporation of Delaware. They will be highlighted in a future newsletter.
–Dennis Palmer P.E.

Assessing the State of the Basin

In September 2004, the Governors of the four basin states and representatives of six federal agencies signed a resolution of support for the policy direction, goals and objectives embodied in the new Water Resources Plan for the Delaware River Basin. The DRBC staff was directed to compile a report to define the environmental conditions of the basin and describe progress towards achieving he desired results of the Plan. The first report is to be issued this year.

To coordinate efforts, DRBC has contracted with the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary (PDE), and the four Water Resource Research Institutes (WRRI) in the four basin states’ land grant universities. The US Geological Survey, National Park Service and Environmental Protection Agency are also partners. Coordinated through the Water Resources Agency at the University of Delaware’s Institute for Public Administration, students at Rutgers, Cornell and Penn State Universities are in the process of collecting and evaluating data on water quality, precipitation, water availability, aquatic species health, wetlands, and other water resource related conditions for the bay, the river mainstem, and 21 watershed reporting units in the four regions of the basin.

The data are being culled from existing information housed at the national and regional level (e.g., USGS, EPA, USDA Forest Service, National Weather Service, etc.), from state data sets, and from academic work. Because of temporal and financial constraints, only collected data are being analyzed. However, the report will also indicate gaps in information and suggest additional work that remains to be done to improve environmental reporting and condition assessment in the future.

This collaborative effort represents milestones in both its product and its process:
- The last systematic report on the Basin was “The Final Report and Environmental Impact Statement of the Level B Study “(Level B Study) developed by the Commission in conformance with the guidelines established by the defunct US Water Resources Council. The report, released in May 1981 following nearly five years of study and public review, focuses primarily on natural conditions and water resource management for supply, energy production and flood mitigation. Recreation and water quality were addressed, but with somewhat lesser emphasis. The Level B study also included policy recommendations.

The 2006 report will be strictly an assessment of conditions, but the issue array will be broader than that of the Level B, and include more information on water quality, habitat and key species, health parameters, such as fish consumption advisories, and watershed landscape conditions related to water use, supply and quality.
- The collaborative process being used to develop the State of the Basin Report 2006 is also unique. It represents the first time that the four WRRIs have worked in concert on the same project. Each institute is supported by the USGS and, to varying degrees, by their respective universities. This project offers an opportunity both to increase collaboration and cooperation among the research institutes and to support and sustain students interested in water resources.

As reported to the Commissioners on May 1st by Jerry Kauffman, Director of the Water Resources Agency of Delaware, the team, taking advantage of the convenience and efficiency of video- and tele-conferencing, has been meeting monthly. Indicator selection is nearly finished, as is the identification of data sources. Data assembly and assessment will be completed this summer, allowing time for document design in the fall; publication and distribution is expected by the end of this year. Executive summaries will be printed and distributed, and all of the data will eventually be accessible through the DRBC web site.
This collaborative project is funded by DRBC, the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary and generous support from the William Penn Foundation as part of the Basin Plan development grant.

1 The four regions, as defined in the Basin Plan (2004) are the Upper, Central, Lower and Bay. These regions are composed of ten watershed groups that have further been disaggregated to enable and simplify data collection and analysis.

Many thanks to Jessica Rittler Sanchez of DRBC for contributing this article.

Delaware Valley Early Warning System (EWS): Two Years in Action

The Delaware Valley Early Warning System (EWS) is an online monitoring, notification, and communication system designed to provide water suppliers in the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers with advanced warning of water quality events. The system was developed from initial funding provided by EPA and DEP to the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) in 2002. The EWS is comprised of a partnership of water suppliers and emergency responders throughout the coverage area, a real-time water quality monitoring network, and a notification system that enables emergency responders and other users to generate automated telephone and email notifications concerning water quality events.

The Delaware Valley EWS was initially deployed in January 2004 after two years of development. At this time the emergency responders, water suppliers, and other agencies within the coverage area were encouraged to begin using system for making event notifications, viewing and graphing water quality data, and conducting follow-up communication on water quality events, in order to verify system functionality and resolve system bugs not identified in previous development and testing. In January 2005, after one year of system testing, the telephony reporting feature was integrated into EWS and the system was deployed as fully operational.

From the initial deployment in January 2004 to April 2006, 49 unique water quality events were entered into the system including 16 oil spills, 11 chemical spills, 6 sewage spills, 12 general water quality related notifications (algae growth, dam removals, flood warnings, etc.), and 5 other spills including arsenic-laden fly ash, leachate, and high and low pH discharges. The two most notable events during this period were the 11/26/04 spill of approximately 275,000 gallons of crude oil by the Athos I tanker, and the 8/23/05 discharge of approximately 1 million gallons of water containing arsenic-laden fly ash from the PP&L Martin's Creek plant - both of which entered the Delaware River. While the Athos I spill occurred during the first year of beta testing the EWS was instrumental in fostering communication between water suppliers and emergency responders to determine the extent of the water quality impact from the event. With the PP&L fly ash spill, the EWS was the primary means by which many of the downstream users were notified of the event. Both events verified the importance and value of the system and have lead to increased interest and participation from among the potential users within the EWS coverage area.

The EWS has continued to expand and develop technologically, geographically, and institutionally. US Coast Guard's Sector Delaware Bay command duty officers, PA DEP's Northeast, Southcentral, and Southeast emergency responders, to name a few, have received training on incorporating EWS notifications into their emergency response protocols. All water suppliers on the main branches of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers within the EWS coverage area are now included in the notification system as well as a few industries such as PP&L. A major accomplishment was achieved by the EWS Steering Committee in voting on and passing a user fee structure which enables water suppliers benefiting from participation in the EWS to pay an annual fee to cover the operation and maintenance costs associated with the EWS, an action that both affirms the buy-in of the EWS users and provides a continual source of funding to ensure system sustainability.

In moving forward, the main objective of the EWS is to make the system even more comprehensive in its coverage and even more dependable as a regional water quality monitoring, notification, and communication system. A few primary objectives for attaining this goal include: 1) strengthening partnerships with emergency responders in upstream reaches of the coverage area to ensure upstream water suppliers and industries are notified of events affecting their intakes; 2) expanding the notification system to cover all industrial intakes within the coverage area; 3) incorporating water suppliers that withdraw from intakes along tributaries to the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers; 4) incorporating EWS notifications into spill response protocols of potential dischargers within the coverage area; and 5) expanding the real-time monitoring network to include additional water quality parameters, additional locations, and new monitoring technologies. The Delaware Valley EWS was initially developed from funding obtained from the DEP and EPA and the success obtained so far, and its continued success in the future, is dependent on the guidance, participation, and support of the water suppliers, emergency responders, and industries that make up the continuously expanding EWS partnership.

Many thanks to Jason Hunt of the Philadelphia Water Department for contirbuting this article.