FROM THE POCONO RECORD- 7/22/07

SMARTER MANAGEMENT OF RESERVOIRS MAY HELP TO LESSEN THE SEVERITY
OF FLOODING ON THE DELAWARE RIVER
Pocono Record Writer
July 22, 2007

Smarter management of reservoirs in the Delaware River basin, along with a
host of other measures, may help to lessen the severity of the flooding that
devastated the area three times, according to a report issued Tuesday by the
Delaware River Basin Commission.

The report is clear to state that the reservoirs did not, on their own,
cause the three floods. But, beneath the caveats, nuance and calls for more
study, it essentially supports the notion that spilling reservoirs likely
worsened the problem.

"Despite the fact that flooding would still occur along the Delaware even if
a year-round void program (in the reservoirs) were implemented, reservoir
management actions could reduce flood crests for a given flood," read the
report, produced by the DRBC's Interstate Flood Mitigation Task Force.

Three floods soaked homes and businesses along the Delaware River and its
tributaries in September 2004, April 2005 and June 2006.

They killed nine people and caused $225 million in damage to some 6,300
properties. They were the first major floods on the Delaware in nearly 50
years, when the notorious 1955 flood took the lives of about 100 people.

After the third of the three floods, the fury of river residents
intensified. Last September, the governors of Delaware, New Jersey, New York
and Pennsylvania, who sit, with the federal government, on the DRBC,
commissioned the agency to form an Interstate Flood Mitigation Task Force to
study the problem and make recommendations.

The DRBC is a multi-state agency that oversees the management of the
Delaware River and its resources.

The task force consisted of more than 30 emergency management personnel,
elected and appointed government officials, hydrologists and academics.

Their 45 recommendations called on state and local governments to update
their floodplain maps and regulations, standardize the width of
development-free buffers along the river's banks, create incentives to
reduce stormwater runoff from existing development, and improve their flood
warning system.

But the set of findings dealing with the management of reservoirs has
attracted the most attention.

The reservoirs sit in the basin, mostly along the river's tributaries. Some
are owned and operated by New York City and supply its water, others are run
by the Army Corps of Engineers and one, Lake Wallenpaupack, is privately
owned by PPL power company.

Downriver residents have zeroed in on the Cannonsville, Neversink and
Pepacton reservoirs, which supply water to New York City. All three were
full or spilling billions of gallons of water during the three most recent
floods. Some residents believe this exacerbated the river's crest levels.

But the task force recommended looking at how all of the reservoirs play a
role.

"There is a need to evaluate all of these reservoirs," the authors wrote,
"in order to develop plans to minimize their total discharge (spills plus
releases) during flood conditions."

The task force's recommendations, which stop short of calling for voids –
dedicated empty space in the reservoirs to gather water – were nonetheless
seen by some as a step in the right direction.

"Every reservoir needs to have a flood mitigation plan that says what they
are going to do when they are full and we're about to have excessive
rainfall," said Diane Tharp, a resident of Shawnee-on-Delaware whose home on
Eilenberger's Landing has thrice been wrecked by flooding. She has spoken
extensively to government bodies about the impact of the reservoirs and the
need for comprehensive study.

"I'm for the recommendations. There are a lot of positives," Tharp said.
"But they're vague. I feel they didn't go far enough."

Residents downriver were less charitable.

"They had the opportunity to do the right thing, and actually investigate
and recommend several options," Elaine Reichart, of the Delaware Riverside
Conservancy citizens group and a former delegate to the task force, wrote
via e-mail.

She advocated siphons or dry dams to store stormwater, or putting voids in
place in the reservoirs. "They completely whitewashed it," she wrote of the
report.

The task force's first recommendation regarding the reservoirs is to call
for a scientific flood-modeling program to better evaluate exactly how the
water, reservoirs, weather and topography interact.

That is already under way, with the support of the U.S. Geographical Survey,
Army Corps of Engineers and the National Weather Service. It will not be
ready until early 2009, according to Clarke Rupert, spokesman for the DRBC.

Reichart bemoaned the time delay that such study would mean. "We are talking
about seven to 10 years until real protection from reservoir mismanagement –
that's if you believe the studies would not be New York City-biased," she
wrote. "I do not hold out much hope."

Rupert said the DRBC's goal was to ground in sound science any future
decisions about reservoirs and the river.

"That's why we need the model," he said. "That is the kind of tool we need
to better define the effects of reservoir spills and look at the larger
picture about what kinds of opportunities there'd be in the other dozen or
so reservoirs."

But many residents remain skeptical, and await the release of the DRBC's
next document, the Flexible Flow Management Program, which will set rules
for the river and the reservoirs to balance competing interests – water
supply, flood management and fish habitats, among others.

The first draft of that document, released earlier this year, received scorn
from residents. A second draft was due to be made public last Monday, but
was delayed while the sides continued negotiating.

The framework in which the decree parties – Delaware, New Jersey, New York
and Pennsylvania, and New York City – must operate dictates that any member
can have veto power, which makes agreement that much more difficult to
attain.

"They're trying to incorporate changes," Rupert said of the parties. "We
have to wait and see what they will eventually come up with."