Agricultural and Urban Runoff the Delaware River Basin Is an Important Source of Clean Water for Drinking, Wildlife and Recreation, but Faces Numerous Threats

The Delaware River and its 216 tributaries are vital sources of fresh water. The Clean Water Act is intended to protect and restore our waterways, such as Puget Sound (below) and the Detroit River (right).

Cover: NYC Tom via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Inset: MPCA Photos via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0 Threats to Clean Water in the Delaware River Basin Agricultural and Urban Runoff The Delaware River basin is an important source of clean water for drinking, wildlife and recreation, but faces numerous threats. Environment America’s interactive online map depicts threats to clean water in the basin – including runoff pollution from farms and urban areas. This is one of five fact sheets summarizing data from the map.

The Delaware River Basin Is a Runoff Pollution Threatens Vital Natural Resource Waterways in the Delaware Basin The Delaware River basin, which spans 13,500 square miles Stormwater washing off of farm fields, urban pavement and and encompasses the Delaware Bay, the Delaware River, and construction sites carries an array of pollutants into the waters the river’s 216 tributaries, is a popular recreational area, a of the Delaware River basin. critical resource for wildlife, and a vital source of fresh water.1 • Pollution from manure runoff and other sources contrib- Roughly 15 million people, living both inside and outside of utes to oxygen depletion. Dissolved oxygen concentrations the watershed, rely on it for drinking water.2 in the Delaware River have been improving over time, but Unfortunately, this important watershed faces a number of they are still sometimes low enough to harm aquatic life.3 threats. Environment America’s online map provides residents • Pesticide pollution affects the health of fish and people. of the Delaware River basin with a unique tool to explore po- Contamination from long-banned pesticides such as DDT tential sources of water pollution where they live and across the remains a concern in long stretches of the Delaware River, region – including threats posed by runoff pollution. The map while currently used pesticides such as atrazine have been is available at www.delawarewatershed.org. found in streams throughout the basin.4 • Sediment pollution harms aquatic ecosystems by clouding waterways and carrying harmful pollutants into waterways. Farm Runoff Carries Pollution into Urban Runoff Includes a Variety Waterways of Pollutants Farms in the Delaware River basin often apply manure, chemi- Rain and melting snow can carry a slew of urban pollutants – cal fertilizers and pesticides to fields. These pollutants can be from pet waste to oil, and from road salt to garden chemicals – carried into waterways when it rains – particularly if they are into waterways, either directly or via storm sewers. Stormwater applied improperly or if waterways lack protective buffers. washing over construction sites can also carry sediment into waterways, clouding the water and harming aquatic life, while More than a quarter of the nitrogen finding its way into Dela- stormwater flowing into older combined sewer systems triggers ware River basin waterways comes from agricultural fertilizer overflows that cause raw sewage to pollute waterways. and manure runoff.5 In some segments of the basin – includ- ing the Delaware River basin above Trenton and the Bran- Research demonstrates that the greater the share of a water- dywine-Christina watershed – agriculture is the number one shed that is covered with pavement, roofs and other impervious source of nitrogen pollution. Nitrogen and phosphorus pollu- surfaces, the more likely it is that waterways will be burdened tion can lead to conditions of low oxygen that threaten aquatic with runoff pollution.8 Increases in impervious surface in the life. Low oxygen levels were thought to have caused a massive Delaware River basin have been associated with an increase in fish kill in Delaware Bay in 2010.6 flooding, as well as rising sodium and chlorine levels, likely from road salt.9 In addition, a 2004 study by the U.S. Geological Survey de- tected 30 pesticides in the basin’s waterways, including several Environment America’s online map illustrates the share of samples with levels of pesticides higher than health standards.7 each region within the basin covered by impervious surfaces. The Philadelphia area has the highest share, with 50 percent The Environment America online map shows the parts of the or more of some subwatersheds covered in pavement and other Delaware basin that are most prone to runoff of nitrogen, phos- hard surfaces. phorus and sediment from agriculture. Farming regions in east- ern Delaware, central and southern New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania are shown to be important sources of nitrogen and phosphorus, which contribute to oxygen depletion that can harm wildlife.

Runoff from farmland can pollute rivers and streams with Impervious surfaces in Philadelphia contribute to nutrients, pesticides and sediment. stormwater pollution.

Photo: Montgomery County Planning Commission via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 Photo: Payton Chung via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 Information Is Lacking on Some Key Threats Factory farms house large numbers of animals producing vast quantities of manure. Large-scale spills of manure can pose an acute threat to waterways – in March 2018, for example, 100,000 gallons of manure spilled from a farm just outside the Delaware basin in Lancaster County, PA, triggering a fish kill.10 Unlike other types of water quality threats in the Delaware River basin, data on the location of and threats posed by factory farms is difficult to come by. To fully protect water quality in the Delaware, the public needs complete information about the threats facing their local waterways and the basin as a whole.

The Environment America online map shows the portions of the Delaware basin where agricultural nitrogen runoff (left) and urban runoff (as measured by the share of the basin covered by impervious surfaces, right) pose the greatest threat to water quality. Runoff Pollution by the Numbers Protecting the Delaware River Basin from Top Watersheds for Agricultural Nitrogen Runoff Runoff Pollution Agricultural Nitrogen Runoff To ensure that the Delaware River basin can continue to Subwatershed States (lbs./year) support recreation, provide healthy ecosystems for wildlife, and serve as a source of clean and safe drinking water for Headwaters Tulpehocken Creek PA 571,277 15 million Americans, we need to limit the damage from agricultural and urban runoff. Necessary steps include: Upper Cohansey River NJ 530,664 • Expanding the use of green stormwater infrastructure such as rain gardens, permeable pavement and green Buckhorn Creek-Delaware River NJ, PA 483,460 roofs that reduce the flow of runoff from urban areas into waterways. Headwaters Salem River NJ 416,813 • Shifting toward more sustainable farming practices. Duck Creek DE 409,168 States should consider a moratorium on factory farm- ing, tighter enforcement of manure management plans on farms, universal and rigorous permitting for factory Top Watersheds for Impervious Surface Coverage animal farms, and an increase in the amount of infor- mation about factory farming that must be shared with Percent Impervious the public. Subwatershed States Surface • Strengthening requirements for pollution-capturing buf- Petty Island-Delaware River NJ, PA 68.2% fer zones along farm fields and in urban areas. City of Philadelphia-Schuylkill River PA 60.4% • Extending protective designations to keep clean waters Tacony Creek-Frankford Creek PA 53.5% clean and increasing funding for land conservation. • Maintaining and strengthening all federal clean water Pompeston Creek-Delaware River NJ, PA 50.1% protections. Cobbs Creek PA 49.0% • Consistently funding restoration efforts across the Dela- ware River basin.

Notes 1. Delaware River Basin Commission, 2016 Delaware River and Bay Water Quality Assess- ment, August 2016, 2, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20180619142442/http:// www.nj.gov/drbc/library/documents/WQAssessmentReport2016.pdf. 2. Ibid. 3. Delaware River Basin Commission, Monitoring Oxygen Shows Improvement in Water Qual- ity (factsheet), 8 August 2017, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20180619142413/ http://www.nj.gov/drbc/library/documents/DOfact-sheetAug17.pdf. 4. DDT: Delaware River Basin Commission, 2016 Delaware River and Bay Water Quality Assessment, August 2016, 36, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20180619142442/ Explore Threats in Your Area http://www.nj.gov/drbc/library/documents/WQAssessmentReport2016.pdf; Atrazine: Gerald Kauffman, et al., State of the Delaware Basin Report: Technical Summary, 4 July 2008. 5. Gerald J. Kauffman, “The Cost of Clean Water in the Delaware River Basin (USA),” To learn more about pollution from agricultural and urban Water, 10(2): 95, Winter 2018, DOI: 10.3390/w10020095. 6. Hundreds of thousands: Richard Degener, “Dead Bunker Wash Ashore by the Thou- runoff near your home or water provider – and from other sands along Delaware Bay in Cape May County,” The Press of Atlantic City, 11 August 2010, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20180709154001/https://www.pressofat- sources of pollution in the Delaware River basin – explore lanticcity.com/communities/lower_capemay/dead-bunker-wash-ashore-by-the-thousands- along-delaware-bay/article_ee3e7a3e-a5a2-11df-bdfd-001cc4c002e0.html; Low oxygen: Environment America’s interactive map of the basin at New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Water Sampling Confirms Low Oxygen Levels in Delaware Bay; DEP Working to Speed Removal of Dead Fish from Beaches (press www.delawarewatershed.org. release), 12 August 2010, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20180709154309/ https://www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2010/10_0082.htm. 7. R. Edward Hickman, U.S. Geological Survey, Pesticide Compounds in the Delaware River Basin, December 1998-August 2001, 2004, archived at https://web.archive.org/ web/20180619142122/https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2004/5105/NJsir2004-5105_report.pdf. 8. Thomas R. Schueler, Lisa Fraley-McNeal and Karen Cappiella, “Is Impervious Cover Still Important? Review of Recent Research,” Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, April 2009, 309-315, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20180619142009/http:// chesapeakestormwater.net/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/02/Is-Imp-Cover-Still- Important.pdf. 9. Hongbing Sun, et al., “Changes in Impervious Surface Area, Flood Frequency, and Water Chemistry within the Delaware River Basin during the Past 50 Years: Initial Results,” Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on HydroScience and Engineering, Philadelphia, 10-13 September 2016, available at https://idea.library.drexel.edu/islandora/ object/idea%3A1379. 10. Associated Press, “Pennsylvania Waterway Soiled by 100K Gallon Manure Spill,” Fox News, 8 March 2018, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20180619141703/http:// www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/08/pennsylvania-waterway-soiled-by-100k-gallon-manure- spill.html.