4/090/08 Tame the Delaware
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
BY VAL SIGSTEDT

Richard Green's opinion article in The Times, "Upriver reservoir policy floods the Delaware" (March 10) was inspirational. Finally, in one place we have the Delaware River flooding story, point by point, in a way that can be put in front of even the least scientific person in office.
Here are some other Delaware River policy "monsters":

Perceptively, Mr. Green brought Philadelphia's water situation relative to the New York dams into focus. The much higher sea levels that will in time become the prime issue in the 127-mile, deep Delaware estuary are being hastened and worsened by artificially low flows because of minuscule dam re leases from New York's upstream reservoirs. The "salt front" is kept in place at present by the upriver dam releases, but for how long?
Philadelphians could wake up any morning and find their water is being supplied at much higher cost by Aqua America, formerly the Philadelphia Suburban Water Company run by Nicholas DeBene dictis, the man who in 1979 set in motion Bucks County's, and even tually the region's, water plan, called the Point Pleasant Pumping Station.

"The Pump" was the nucleus of his Philadelphia region water em pire, which is now poised to take over the provision of Philadelphia's water, all to export the profits abroad. Aqua America and its time-tempered politics are only one part of the political clamp that holds this region in thrall. Some huge businesses have dogs in this water fight.

Philadelphia is a freshwater port. That could be a huge advan tage to both ports and boat owners if their ship bottoms remain in the fresh water long enough to kill the barnacles which, when they are gone, lets a ship glide much more efficiently through the water, sav ing much fuel and providing big profits to a freshwater port. But Philadelphia's freshwater advan tage is intentionally minimized by not addressing the siltation problems with adequate flows.

The low flows that were engineered into the Delaware River and its estuary come about when the structural deficiencies planned into the dams in the late 1920s and eventually built into the three New York City dams, provided only tiny spillways and no actual floodgates. So the estuary rarely floods and flushes, and the channels and harbors continually silt up from the unnaturally slowed flows. As a re sult, the Delaware's ports can entertain only a relatively few ships at a time, which favors our competition, New York City's port facilities. Bingo.

The chief cause of earthen dams such as the three Delaware reservoirs upstream is overtopping, which attacks the dams at the bottom, where they are wet and at their weakest. The New York City Delaware reservoirs are kept at 100 percent capacity and they overtop with every new severe rain event. A breached dam is not a flood; it is an avalanche of water, an enormously destructive catastrophic event.

As I write, the Delaware Aque duct that empties the New York Delaware reservoirs has been closed down to see if it can be repaired. Therefore, approximately 600 million gallons of water daily isn't being used by New York City and is piling up in the huge reservoirs. I can anticipate that the enormous cost to repair the leaks and damages to the collapsing Delaware Aqueduct tunnel will force New York to abandon the whole Delaware System. Why doesn't New York City make permanent whatever alternative water it is using now, let go of the Delaware and allow new basinwide managers to restore its infrastructure and properly develop the water from the Delaware River?

The Delaware River Basin Commission is a basin commission in name only. It is not a true regulat ing facility or even a force on the river, since it is not empowered by its creators to make any meaning ful decisions that do not exactly parallel the agenda of New York City; it is rather a ratifying agency. I say that having high regard for the very capable persons who oc cupy the leadership and work positions of the DRBC. But with its name, it should be a thoughtful flagship of national water policy, not a repeater mechanism.

If these Delaware River monster situations are truly happening, someone in power is owed a lot of political favors. I think that every succeeding Pennsylvania and Philadelphia high official since 1928 has dithered and denied values to the Delaware estuary, and that is the grandfathered political crime still being committed by every official who doesn't cry havoc when it comes to letting righteous amounts of water be stored and let flow into the dual bioregions served by the diverted Delaware River.

I admire Mr. Green's clarity and singleness of purpose, and the editorial integrity of The Times for publishing his analysis. These are political subjects in very political times. Politicians who refuse to make the Delaware River part of this rapidly energizing political landscape want us to be damaged and helpless, as the vitality of New York state and New York City turns our part of the Delaware River basin into a rudderless, flood- swept, underfunded rust belt.Val Sigstedt has lived in central Bucks County, working as an artist, since 1960. He has written about the river as an environmental columnist and activist since 1983.