Temporary plan on Delaware River flooding reported likely

A temporary plan to reduce flooding along the Delaware River - a stop-gap measure Gov. Rendell called for earlier this month - is reported likely next week. Whether it will include increasing releases from three New York City-owned reservoirs has not been determined.

"We're just asking everyone to be very patient," Neil Weaver, spokesman for Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection, said yesterday. "A result will come . . . within the next week."

His counterpart in New York City, Michael Saucier, would say only: "Discussions are continuing."

Their comments followed a late-afternoon conference call held by officials from the four Delaware River basin states - Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and New York - as well as representatives for New York City.

They are the parties to a Supreme Court decree that has provided the framework for water-flow management in the 13,539-square-mile basin since 1954. Under that agreement, any changes to flow rules must be approved by all parties.

Yesterday's private telephone meeting was a response to a call-to-action letter Rendell sent to the decree parties on April 2. The governor pushed for increased water releases through April from the reservoirs, located in the Catskills at the Delaware's headwaters. The man-made lakes serve the water needs of nine million residents from Ulster County, N.Y., to Queens.

Downriver, victims blame them for three floods that have walloped communities in the basin since September 2004, killing nine and causing more than $70 million in damage to 2,000 properties.

At least a half-dozen citizen groups have formed to lobby for year-round storage space - or voids - in the reservoirs. They contend voids of up to 20 percent would lessen flooding by catching rainfall that would then be released to the river in a more controlled fashion.

"A crock" was Jeff Zimmerman's reaction yesterday when told that the decree parties still had not come to a consensus on the releases Rendell has requested.

Zimmerman is a Washington, D.C.-area environmental lawyer representing two groups pushing for more flood protection along the Delaware - Aquatic Conservation Unlimited and North Delaware River Watershed Conservancy.

He said he hoped that whatever plan they eventually come up with covered May as well. In recent years, that month has been more rainy than April in the Upper Delaware, Zimmerman said.

A $765,000 scientific study to determine what role - if any - the reservoirs play in flooding is under way by the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Delaware River Basin Commission. The results are expected early next year.

Unwilling to wait, flood victims in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have been pressuring Rendell and Gov. Corzine to push New York to lower the water levels in the reservoirs while work on that study continues.

Prior to his April 2 letter, Rendell, the current chairman of the basin commission, had refused to acknowledge any possible connection between the New York reservoirs and flooding downriver.

Officials from New Jersey and Delaware said yesterday that they support the call for increased water releases from the reservoirs as long as they don't result in shortages that would jeopardize their water withdrawals from the river or its wildlife habitats, including the renowned trout fisheries.

"We're encouraged that we can work something out," said Kathy Bunting-Howarth, acting director for Delaware's Division of Water Resources.

New York City has consistently resisted calls for lowering water levels in its reservoirs, which opened between 1954 and 1964. It has kept them full during the rainy season as a hedge against summer drought - a position supported by the Supreme Court agreement. Indeed, droughts, not floods, have been the more persistent problem on the river since the flood of record in August 1955, during which crests of 28.6 feet were recorded.

That is no consolation to the victims of the last three floods - especially with the reservoirs currently over-capacity and spilling and rain in the forecast this weekend.

Said Lower Makefield resident Scott Burgess, chairman of the 200-member Residents Against Flood Trends: "Somebody is not caring about us."