Angling for a tad more shad in the Delaware
Conservationists want more reservoir water released to aid fish habitat

March 6, 2007
Star-Ledger (NJ)
By Brian T. Murray

Conservationists say they will ask Delaware River regulators to spill more water from three New York dams for the benefit of fish and fishermen.

Trout Unlimited leaders plan to take that request today to West Trenton, where a Delaware River Basin Commission panel is meeting to update flow patterns. The commission, which manages the river with representatives from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the federal government, is reevaluating water flow from the three major dams under a three- year plan.

New York City gets about half of its water from the reservoirs held back by those dams, and ensuring that water supply is the commis sion's main goal.

But Trout Unlimited, a national group dedicated to conserving North America's trout and salmon waters, claims the ecology can benefit without threatening water sup plies if the commission permits slightly larger releases from those reservoirs in the spring and summer.

The added water, measured in millions of gallons per day, would flow through major areas of trout and shad habitat in the Upper Delaware during key spawning and growing seasons.

"This is an historic opportunity for the management of the Delaware River to conform to modern environmental practices," Nat Gillespie, a fisheries biologist for Trout Unlimited, said yesterday.

The group said it will unveil an alternative and detailed flow plan today at the commission's Regulated Flow Advisory Committee meeting at the commission's West Trenton headquarters.

"Our alternative plan calls for releasing only a little more water than what's in the commission proposal during the spring and summer," he added. "That water will provide significant increases in habitat for shad and trout in the Upper Delaware."

The flow releases involve three New York City-owned reservoirs, including the Cannonsville Reservoir along the West Branch Delaware River, the Pepacton Reservoir on the East Branch Delaware River and the Neversink Reservoir on the Neversink River. The west and east branches, in particular, lead to a 40-mile stretch of the Upper Delaware River area north of New Jersey where reproducing trout and shad have created a hot spot for fishermen.

But an estimated 15 million people, including 7 million in New York City and northern New Jersey, rely on the basin for their water supplies -- a demand that had made the commission cautious about reservoir discharges, particularly during the summer.

"There are tons of people interested in this issue, and a lot is being balanced," said commission spokesman Rick Fromuth, noting the plan also has attracted the attention of people living downstream in areas prone to flooding.

Flow control along the 330-mile Delaware River, particularly from dams along feeder streams and rivers, has long been a source of dispute.

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling to resolve multistate water-use issues in the entire 13,539-square-mile Delaware River Basin, a region in which 216 tributaries flow into the river. As a re sult, the Delaware River Basin Commission was created in 1961 as a multistate and federal planning agency.

The commission is proposing the flow-management plan to replace a similar three-year plan adopted in 2004. Several public hearings will be held before a scheduled adoption on May 27.

Since the commission was created, it has slowly grown more sensitive to permitting seasonal reservoir releases when the added water to the Delaware River benefits wildlife and the ecology. But environmentalists insist much more should be done.

"Releases, early on after the 1954 Supreme Court decision, were very small. But that has changed and coldwater fisheries have improved over the years. On the other side, there is the need for water supply," said Fromuth.

Trout Unlimited contends sup plies need not be threatened if bet ter management practices are employed.

"The problem with the current allocation system is its inability to respond to changing levels of the reservoir," Gillespie said. "Too often, this translates into unnecessary dry river conditions in the spring and summer, and sudden influxes of rushing water when reservoirs fill and spill over in the fall."

Trout and shad thrive in the 40-degree water that pours from the three New York reservoirs in the spring, but neither species does well in shallow, high-temperature conditions.

Brook trout were the only native trout found when Europeans first settled the region, and their populations were largely wiped out when water was fouled. But restocking programs that began more than 100 years ago have reintroduced brook trout, as well as non-native rainbow and brown trout, and they are now reproduc ing in many parts of the basin.

Shad, which run from the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay up the Delaware River, spawn in the New York headwaters during the spring.

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