An environmental perspective on the water management policies of the Upper Delaware River Basin

Abstract

Since 1954, the Delaware River has been managed under the framework of a Supreme Court decree and the subsequent concomitant intergovernmental collaboration between New York State, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York City (NYC) and the US federal government. Taking an environmental perspective, we review the evolution of water release policies for three NYC reservoirs from the issuance of the 1954 decree through the implementation of the Flexible Flow Management Program (FFMP) of 2007–2015 and examine the policies' impact on the upper Delaware River. We describe governmental and institutional constraints on the development of Delaware water policy and show how modifications of release policies have enhanced aquatic habitat and ecological health in the upper Delaware while reliably delivering water to NYC and the Delaware's other principal stakeholders. We describe the development of the FFMP in 2006, its subsequent modification, and its augmentation by NYC's Operations Support Tool in 2012. Finally, we discuss the negative ecological consequences of the 2010–2016 stalemate on Delaware water policy resulting from conflicts between the decree parties about current and future water rights, and how the stalemate derives partially from the decision structure imposed by the 1954 decree and the Good Faith Agreement of 1983.

New York City Panel on Climate Change 2019 Report Chapter 2: New Methods for Assessing Extreme Temperatures, Heavy Downpours, and Drought

“…It stands as a warning of the potential vulnerability of New York City to severe water shortages. Many of the operating rules governing water management for the region depend largely on performance testing using the 1960s drought as the standard (Kolesar and Serio, 2011, Devineni et al, 2013, Ravindranath et al, 2016.…”

Reservoir Operations & Water Allocation Model: New York City Delaware River Basin Reservoirs

“…However, in case of emergency, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) might use water from the ERB for thermal releases to support downstream fisheries or lower basin water demand without considering above conditions (DRBC, 1977;U.S., 1954;Mandarano et. al, 2013;Ravindranath et. al, 2016).…”

“…The location of the dams is shown in Figure 1. However, there were no environmental interests or specified provisions for ecological flows in the 1931 decree (Ravindranath et. al, 2016).…”

“…New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) also specified a thermal stress bank of 6,000 cfs-day to meet these targets by cold-water releases from reservoirs. The thermal stress bank was created to ensure that enough water was actually in the reservoir for fishery protection (Ravindranath et. al., 2016).…”

“…There were 9 revisions from the DRBC's first release policy, Docket D-77-20 CP of May 1977 until the adoption of Flexible Flow Management Plan (FFMP) in September 2007. Until 2007, the adjustments of conservation releases, thermal targets and thermal protection banks were minor, except the Revision 1 in November 1983, the Revision 7 in May of 2004, and the Revision 9 of September 2006 (Ravindranath et. al, 2016).…”