New York Reservoir Releases Monitoring and Evaluation Program on the Delaware River

1 _^ » . - PUBLICATION TECHNICAL REPORT 83-5 Division of Fish and Wildlife Bureau of Environmental Protection New York Reservoir Releases Monitoring and Evaluation Program on the Delaware River SUMMARY REPORT September 1983 New York State/Department of Environmental Conservation ERRATA Page 52, Figure 14. Black bar graphs should be identified as y-O-Y (young-of-year) broxm trout distributions for each sampling year. Page 60, Table 17. "AGE GROUP PERCENT" should be inserted above the Roman numeral ages. Page 127, Figure 40. (i)The key for this figure should read Pepacton Reservoir Cannonsville Reservoir Neversink Reservoir Entire Reservoir System (ii) The spillage for 1973 has been omitted. NEW YORK RESERVOIR RELEASES MONITORING AND EVALUATION PROGRAM - DELAWARE RIVER - SUMMARY REPORT J. Douglas Sheppard Reservoir Release Project Manager - Fisheries and Wildlife Bureau of Environmental Protection Technical Report No. 83-5 New York Department of Environmental Conservation 50 Wolf Road, Albany, N.Y. 12233 September, 1983 PREFACE This document is a technical report on the Delaware River Basin Commission's three year experimental reservoir releases program initiated in 1977 in the Upper Delaware Basin. The report evaluates the effects of these releases on fisheries and recreational uses in the Delaware River system. These studies were designed to satisfy the DRBC Docket Decision (D-77-20) and the elements of the study were defined in a Plan of Study (Appendix A) approved by the DRBC. They included evaluation of the impacts on water temperatures, water quality, fish distributions, fish habitat and recreational uses. Although the report shows that increased releases will improve fishery resources, at this time the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation submits this report to support the permanent extension of the experimental releases. Further study would be required to justify larger releases from the New York Gity Delaware system. The report also presents information in response to water supply concerns but does not include a complete evaluation of the impact of the releases program on the New York City water supply system. It should be kept in mind that the experimental releases program was established before the Delaware "Good Faith" agreement, the New York State Stipulation of Discontinuance, and the 1980-81 drought. Therefore, some of the reservoir system operating criteria now in place and incorporated in the "Good Faith" agreement were developed as a consequence of the experience of the 1980-81 drought and are different from those at the beginning of the experimental releases program. In addition, it should be noted that the release regimes associated with the experimental program were developed within the volume of water reserved for excess releases. However, the currently proposed progrsm of augmented conservation releases (which has identical release regimes) has been modified to be independent and not supported by the excess releases volume. Progress on the, three-year experimental reservoir releases program has been reported on three previous occasions: (1) a Performance Report for the period 1 July 1977 - 30 June- 1978 (Sheppard, 1978); (2) a Delaware River Basin Commission Task Group Report (DRBC, 1979); and (3) a Performance Report for the Period 1 July 1978 - 31 December 1979 (Sheppard, 1980). Separate technical reports on thermal-flow relationships, habitat-flow relationships, changes in fish distribution, and recreational-use assessments are in preparation which will provide more specific details on the various assessments. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The New York Reservoir Releases Monitoring and Evaluation Program for the Delaware River has received the cooperation and assistance of a number of agencies, organizations and individuals. The efforts of the Delaware River Basin Commission, the Delaware River Master and his staff and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection in the implementation and continuation of the program are acknowledged. Appreciation is expressed to Marsh-McBirney, Inc. of Gaithersberg, Maryland and to the U.S. Geological Survey, Albany District Office for the loan of flow-monitoring equipment employed in the collection of data for the habitat-flow assessment. The support and assistance of Catskill Waters, Theodore Gordon Flyfishers-, and the Town of Forestburg Environmental Management Council with the temperature-monitoring study is gratefully appreciated. Special recognition must be given to the contributions provided by R. Engstrom-Heg, Dr. D. Muralidhar and the Cooperative Instream Flow Service Group. The investigations on fish distribution and relative abundance were carried out under the direction of Robert Engstrom-Heg, Research Scientist with the Bureau of Fisheries. In addition, he provided technical assistance with the habitat-flow and temperature assessments. Dr. Muralidhar, Program Research Scientist in the Bureau of Water Supply was responsible for the development of the water-supply impact assessment and for assistance with the temperature-flow relationships presented in this report. The Cooperative Instream Flow Service Group, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Fort Collins, Colorado, particularly Dr. C. Stalnaker, K. Bovee, Dr. R. Milhous and Dr. C. G. Prewitt, provided the author with facilities and technical assistance for the habitat-flow assessments. The contributions of these individuals has been invaluable. The field aspects of the monitoring and evaluation program could not have been effectively accomplished without the support and dedication of DEC Division of Fish and Wildlife staff in Regions 3 and 4 including Russell Fieldhouse, John Gould, Tony Bonavist, William Kelly, Mike Gann, Wayne Elliot, Walter Keller and Phil Hulbert. Technical assistance with the field operations and preliminary data compilations was provided by Alice Drislane, Tom Sutter, Eli O'Dell and Stan Kinne, as well as several DEC summer interns and seasonal technicians. Diana Merchant, Charles Wu and Kathy Barnes were responsible for the preparation of the figures. Judy Hunter typed the draft and final versions of this report with assistance from Rose Diana. Finally, the review and comments on earlier drafts of the report by E. Karath and E. Horn of DEC and staff of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection are acknowledged. ill DISCLAIMER This report has been reviewed by staff of the Department of Environmental Conservation and approved for publication. Approval does not signify that the contents reflect the view and policies of the Departmemt or the Division of Fish and Wildlife nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendations for their use. New York City has reviewed this report prepared by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation prior to its submission to the Delaware River Basin Commission and recognizes that it fulfills the requirements set forth in DRBC Docket No. D-77-20. However, New York City endorses this document solely for the purpose of fulfilling such requirement for technical evaluation and not for the purpose of proposing any increase in the amount of water to be released from New York City Delaware Basin Reservoirs beyond that amount currently required by New York State regulations and by the Delaware River Basin Commission experimental modification of releases schedules for Cannonsville, Neversink and Pepacton reservoirs. In addition, New York City recognizes that this is a technical report and does not necessarily agree with all of the conclusions of the report nor does it necessarily support any policy implications. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii DISCLAIMER ill TABLE OF CONTENTS iv INTRODUCTION 1 BACKGROUND ON RESERVOIR RELEASE PROGRAM 1 NEW YORK MONITORING AND EVALUATION PROGRAM 12 WATER TEMPERATURE 13 Temperature-Flow Relationships 17 Frequency of Thermal Stress-Days 23 Experimental Releases Period 25 Augmented Conservation Release Period 32 FISH DISTRIBUTIONS AND RELATIVE ABUNDANCES 36 East Branch, Delaware River 38 West Branch, Delaware River 46 Neversink River 50 American Shad 57 FISH HABITAT - 62 . East Branch, Delaware River 65 West Branch, Delaware River 73 Neversink River 80 INVERTEBRATES 89 OYSTERS 90 RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES 91 Recreational Fishing 93 Recreational Boating 108 Swimming 114 Economic Impacts 117 DISCUSSION 120 LITERATURE CITED 134 APPENDIX A 139 APPENDIX B 146 INTRODUCTION The" Delaware River Basin drains an area of approximately 12,750 square miles in which more than 22 million people live, work and/or play and a large fraction of the nation's industry is situated. The Upper Delaware River Basin is that portion which lies upstream of Port Jervis, New York and encompasses 3,423 square miles, of which 2,363 square miles lies in the State of New York (see Figure 1). In contrast to the Upper Delaware Basin which is sparsely settled farmland, the Lower Delaware Basin is densely populated and heavily industrialized. As with most major river basins, the major uses of Delaware River water resources include urban and industrial water supply, waste disposal, hydroelectric power generation, agriculture, and recreation the Upper Delaware River Basin being closely associated with most of these uses, except industrial water supply. As a result, there is an obvious need to coordinate the multiple-use of Delaware River water resources if the future demand for all these uses continues to increase, BACKGROUND ON RESERVOIR RELEASES PROGRAM

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