~ Water Resources Association ~

Water Resource Associations of the Delaware River Basin

May '07

Chairman's Message

As we move from spring to summer I would like to reflect upon the success of WRA’s 25th Annual Recognition Dinner on April 18. It is hard to believe that we celebrated our 25th year holding this distinguished event, with the Downtown Club as a great venue, and the recognition of many deserving awardees. While we celebrate this silver anniversary, we also say goodbye to several outstanding water professionals.
George Elias, Nancy Parker and William Gast have left a collective legacy in water resources management and well deserve their respective awards and recognition. As we reflect upon our anniversary dinner, the WRA also recognized two other organizations that have “reinvented themselves” over the last 20 years. The Adventure Aquarium and the New Jersey Academy for Aquatic Sciences, as well as the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust all provide and deliver their respective services and products differently and more expansively then when they were first founded.
The other two a award winners were the City of Newark, Delaware for their new reservoir and the Schuylkill Action Network for the Government and Special Recognition Awards, respectively.
It was also a personal pleasure to meet and greet all of the award winners and presenters during the course of the evening. I would also like to recognize that the distribution of awardees across the lower basin was an excellent representation from the states of Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. There are many worthwhile nominees and it is always a difficult job for the Association to pare down the nominations. Congratulations to all.
Lastly, I would like to thank all of our program advertisers and to those attending. The dinner could not be a success without your support. I am already looking forward to next year’s dinner.
-Dennis W. Palmer, P.E.
WRA Chairman

Around the Basin:Update on Activities in the Christina Basin

The Delaware River is the longest un-dammed river east of the Mississippi, extending 330 miles from the confluence of its East and West branches at Hancock, N.Y. to the mouth of the Delaware Bay. The river is fed by 216 tributaries, and contains 13,539 square miles, draining parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware. The September 2004 Water Resources Plan for the Delaware River Basin recommends developing a set of indicators to assess baseline conditions and measure progress toward objectives that can be published in a State of the Basin Report. The water resources institutes for the four land grant universities for the states in the basin – Cornell University, University of Delaware, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, and Penn State – the Delaware River Basin Commission, and the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary are collaborating on the development of the State of the Basin Report. With the IPA-WRA (Water Resources Agency; a unit of the University of Delaware’s Institute for Public Administration) coordinating the project, the universities have been working together to compile the existing water quality, hydrology, living resources, and landscape data for approximately 50 environmental indicators according to the 21 sub-watershed units. This data will be translated into a “public-friendly” report card format. The report will incorporate features that will be reader friendly to the public, elected officials, and stakeholders in the Delaware River Basin. The Report will be published in paper and digital format for widespread dissemination throughout the four states in the basin. The DRBC plans to finalize the report by spring 2007.
The Christina Basin is a 565 mi2 watershed contained in the larger watershed, the Delaware River Basin. The Christina Basin spans three states, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland and includes four sub-watersheds: Brandywine, Red Clay, and White Clay Creeks, and the Christina River. On April 8, 2005 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assigned Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) to the Christina Basin in accordance with the Federal Clean Water Act. These will require specific reductions in non-point sources of pollution, such as bacteria, nitrogen, and phosphorus in order to restore the rivers and streams of the Christina Basin to a healthy, fishable, swimmable, and potable status by 2015.
While the IPA-WRA has been working diligently on the Delaware River State of the Basin report, which includes assessing the Christina Basin, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) and the IPA-WRA, have been working together to form and facilitate a Tributary Action Team (Team) for the Delaware portion of the Christina Basin. This Team will recommend a Pollution Control Strategy (PCS) to DNREC to reduce pollution to EPA’s targeted levels. Team members include representatives from nonprofit organizations, industry, water utilities, state and local government entities, private consultants, and residents of the Basin.
The Tributary Action Team began its process in February 2006 and has held ten monthly-meetings over the past year and hosted a public forum in June, 2006. Through this forum the group learned the community’s priorities and developed guiding principles that have helped to shape the Pollution Control Strategy for the Delaware portion of the Christina Basin. In December the group finalized a set of voluntary and regulatory sector-specific recommendations for the stormwater, open space, wastewater, agriculture, and education sectors. Each sector contains five to ten specific recommendations designed to reduce the levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and bacteria in the Christina Basin. The PCS outlines the specific recommendation, responsible parties, estimated nutrient reductions, source(s) of funding, location, estimated costs, and type of approach (regulatory or voluntary) for each sector. The Tributary Action team last met in March to review the draft PCS and will be meeting again on June 6 to review a close to final draft of the plan. The schedule is to submit the final document to DNREC by mid-summer. The document will then be reviewed by DNREC and once finalized, the regulatory recommendations will be promulgated. Throughout the process the Tributary Action Team has been updating Pennsylvania on its activities and recommendations and once finalized the PCS for the Delaware portion of the Basin will be joined with the ongoing efforts in the Pennsylvania portion of the Christina Basin.
More information about the PCS and the Tributary Action Team process can be found at: http://www.wr.udel.edu/ChristinaTribTeam/index.html
Many thanks to Martha Corrozi of IPA-WRA at the
University of Delaware for contributing this article.

Update: Development of Water Audit Software

As described in our last newsletter, the DRBC Water Management Advisory Committee (WMAC) presented a white-paper of an water audit software recommendation to the Commissioner’s at their September 27 meeting for their consideration and approval to move forward. The white-paper was approved by the DRBC Commissioners and WMAC’s Water Accountability Subcommittee was instructed to develop draft regulations and a resolution to implement these recommendations. The process is underway at this time and drafts of both products have been developed by the Subcommittee.
The regulations will directly effect municipalities and water purveyors within the Basin.
At the next meeting of WMAC, scheduled for June 14, 2007 at DRBC headquarters, the drafts will be discussed and a plan of action will be developed. The meeting is open to the public. WRA encourages all interested parties to attend and participate in the meeting.
For more information on the draft regulations and resolution please contact Bob Molzahn at the WRA office or David Sayers at DRBC (609-883-9500 ext. 236).