Alliance for a Living Ocean

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The Delaware River Returns To Life
by Donald Launer

Don Launer grew up along the banks of the upper Delaware River. He has traveled by canoe down the Delaware River from its origins in New York State to the Great Falls at Trenton, where the Delaware becomes navigable tidewater, and has cruised in his schooner from Trenton to Delaware Bay and on the Bay to the Atlantic Ocean. Don is author of the book "A Cruising Guide to New Jersey Waters" (Rutgers University Press). He is also an advisor on water quality and a Barnegat Bay Water Monitor.

The Delaware River is like three different rivers: the clear, unspoiled northern waters where it is a shallow river of rapids and white water flowing through woods and farmland; the busy industrial central section where it is a major petroleum center for the east coast; and the wide estuary at the south where the river combines with and loses its identity in the Delaware Bay.

The lower Delaware River is a major commercial waterway. Its origins as a route for merchandising and barter began in the early 17th century when the Dutch East India Company began establishing trading posts along its banks. Water quality in the river began declining as far back as the 1700s when more and more colonists began to occupy its banks, and human and animal waste was flushed into the river. In the latter half of the 1800's, shipbuilding, manufacturing, oil refineries and chemical plants also found it economical to dispose of their waste products directly into the river, and the associated massive population growth sent the water quality into a rapid decline. The problem was exacerbated during World War II, when the importance of shipbuilding and oil and chemical production superseded that of the environment. All of the waste from the new industries, as well as sewage from the exploding population, were dumped into the river and its tributaries. The water quality was so bad that ships at dockside had paint stripped from their hulls by the corrosive mixture, and aquatic life was all but annihilated.

Something clearly had to be done and, with prodding from grass-roots environmentalists, it started with a New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware advisory commission known as The Interstate Commission on the Delaware River Basin. Through this commission, new environmental laws were implemented along with strict water standards and cleanup programs. Many of these new regulations were promulgated by newly-formed environmental groups whose members began policing these standards.

Now the river quality is improving noticeably each year, and environmental advocacy groups such as the Watershed Association of the Delaware River and the Delaware Riverkeeper program continue the fight. The Delaware Riverkeeper organization, affiliated with the American Littoral Society, has been working since 1988 to change the face of stewardship on the river through monitoring by volunteers from Hancock, New York, to Delaware Bay.

Although the river, in its industrial southern sections, may seem to be struggling back slowly and still devoid of aquatic life, shad use these waters as a pathway to the upper reaches of the Delaware River in New York State where they spawn in the spring. Then the young shad, during their fall migration, swim down, past Philadelphia and the oil refinery area, into Delaware Bay which is bounded by wild marshes. The return of the shad, along with other aquatic species, offers a tangible ray of hope for reversing more than two hundred years worth of damage to these beleaguered waters. Yes, the southern Delaware River is slowly returning to life.