Overview

February 7, 2017 the PADEP issued 401 Certification for the PennEast pipeline.  The Certification was formally noticed in the February 25, addition of the PA Bulletin.  February 28 the Delaware Riverkeeper Network submitted a Petition for Review to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  (Appeal filed below).  

July 13, 2017 the Delaware Riverkeeper Network’s legal counsel argued in court that the third circuit should send the case back to the PA Environmental Hearing Board for review and identifying the myriad of ways that the oranization and its members had been denied critical rights as a result of the cart before the horse process the state, supported by PennEast, was utilizing.  To learn more about the arguments of the organization see the reply brief filed 8.7.17 below.

History of the Certification:

In a May 14, 2016 public notice PADEP announced its intent to issue a 401 Water Quality Certification pursuant to the Clean Water Act for the PennEast Pipeline Project.

A second request for comment was filed August 27, 2016, with a second 30 day comment period on what appears to be the identical filing of materials in May.

Key portions of the Application Submission and the public notice can be found in the resources below.

Additionally below you can find the comments and expert reports submitted by the Delaware Riverkeeper Network making the case to the state that they should deny the PennEast pipeline the Clean Water Act 401 Certification approval it is seeking.

Overview

January 24, 2018, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network filed a rehearing request challenging the FERC Certificate issued approving the PennEast Pipeline Project.  The FERC Certificate was issued at 8:20 pm on January 19, 2018.

A Rehearing Request must be submitted and denied before a legal challenge in court can be pursued.  FERC has 30 days to respond to the request.

Delaware Riverkeeper Network also submitted to FERC a Motion for Stay to halt construction and any other land disturbance pending the rehearing request. 

The Rehearing Request, Motion for Stay, and associated press release can be found below.

On February 22, 2018 FERC issued a tolling order in response to our rehearing request, placing our organization in legal limbo as it was neither a grant nor denial of our rehearing request. 

On March 15, 2018 the Delaware Riverkeeper Network submitted a rehearing request on the 2/22/2018 tolling order.  As expected, FERC issued a tolling order on this rehearing request on April 13, 2018.  Again, seeking to use this legal loophole strategy FERC has created to continue to prevent our access to the courts.  

On May 9, 2018, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network filed for a writ of mandamus seeking a court order that FERC respond affirmatively to our rehearing requests and also seeking to challenge the FERC final decision despite the tollling order.

All filings and documents can be found below.

Overview

On Friday, July 22, 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the PennEast Pipeline project that is 1,174 pages long giving September 5 (then 12) as the deadline for comments.  FERC’s measly 45/52 day comment period was another blatant abuse of power by FERC in favor of the pipeline companies and to the detriment of the many people facing irreparable damage to their health, safety, environment and economic wellbeing.   Below is the cover comment and series of expert reports the Delaware Riverkeeper Network submitted in response.  

There are other attachments not included below but which can be provided upon request.

Editor’s note: This issue is currently dormant. We will continue monitoring the situation and may take up the issue in the future.

Overview

The Southport Development project involves the filling in of 12.28 acres of open water (.2 of which is emergent wetlands, 1.08 acres of which is shallow water habitat, and 3.62 of which is deep water habitat); 3.75 acres of nontidal wetlands; .73 acres of a tidal drainage area; filling in an unspecified amount of floodplain lands with 3 to 4 feet of fill in order to raise the area to above the 100-year floodplain (in fact to raise it to the 200 year floodplain); dredging a 35-acre area within the River to a 40+2 foot depth; impacts to approximately 4600 linear ft of existing shoreline; the permanent loss of 1.08 acres of submerged aquatic vegetation; and having a 116 acre development footprint which will necessarily be on riverside lands and result in the loss of potential terrestrial habitat. The project is being postured as a method for disposing of spoils from the Army Corps’ Delaware deepening proposal.  And that explains why the push by PA and the apparent interest of the Army Corps to skew the review and public process to make approval for the project easier. 
  
As part of its overall vision for the Delaware River Deepening project, Pennsylvania conceived of, and advanced the proposed Southport project.  The project never recieved full and fair review from the US Army Corps who appreciated the project for providing a much needed rationale for deepening.  The Delaware Riverkeeper Network repeatedly expressed our concerns regarding the proposed Southport development project and what appeared to us to be an evolving abuse of process and politics.  Our review of the files demonstrated that the Army Corps supported efforts to truncate the environmental review process that should be taking place around this proposal.  And so the Delaware Riverkeeper Network urged the Environmental Protection Agency to step in and take the reigns. But they failed to act.  In fact, documents on the record showed us that rather than exercising any oversight they instead sought to work in collusion to evade full and fair review of the project.  In email from EPA officials to Army Corps officials it is said: “In light of the rash of activity recently from the riverkeeper regarding the Southport project, we are hoping to set up a meeting with you guys to make sure we are on the same page.”   

Ultimately, because of its connectivity to the Deepening the Southport project was approved. 

Overview

Expansion of the PHL Airport continues at a variety of different locations. In 2019, DRN learned of the expansion of the West Cargo Redevelopment and Expansion Plan (Expansion Plan), which will relocate the UPS facility near Tinicum Township. DRN partnered with the Darby Creek Valley Association and the Eastwick Friends and Neighbors Coalition. DRN has served on EFNC’s Board for 7 years.  

In 2019, the partnership prepared substantive comment on the Environmental Assessment (EA) Scoping document and in 2020 on the EA itself.  In both comments, we stressed that the impacts would be significant enough that a full EIS should be conducted on the Expansion Plan to fully understand the cumulative impacts of this expansive project, which includes but is not limited to, increase is impervious surface, disturbance of wetland and open space, increase noise and pollution, change in local hydrology and likely impacts on flooding and wildlife habitat. The cumulative impacts that would be documented in an EIS would reveal the impact the Expansion Plan will have on the surrounding human communities and the local and regional environment. Further, we believe that the EA has insufficiently addressed up-stream development, the impacts of sea-level rise, storm surges and other effects of Climate Change. The Expansion Plan is a multi-billion dollar project whose impact will be felt for decades.  

Attached are the comments from both the 2019 EA Scoping and the 2020 EA. Mitigation is required under the EA and DRN and partners will continue to follow and monitor those efforts. 

Overview

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network and project partner the Newton Creek Watershed Association trained volunteers to photo-document sources of non-point source pollutants throughout the Newton Creek Watershed.  The photos show the good, the bad and the ugly of this urban watershed that stretches from Haddonfield to Camden.

Newton Lake and Peters Creek, a Newton tributary, are both listed as “impaired waterways” by NJDEP because they cannot support a healthy mix of aquatic life.  These degraded conditions are primarily due to excessive stormwater runoff, which causes erosion, nutrient enrichment, local flooding and sewage overflows.

The volunteers, nearly all from area high schools, were given an introduction on the urban water cycle and the impacts on local waterways from impervious surfaces, poor stormwater compliance and maintenance.  The volunteers were each assigned a segment of the creek and, utilizing their own smartphones, took pictures of excessive erosion, discharge pipes going directly into the waterway, illegally disposed of yard waste and trash.  All photos were geo-tagged so the exact locations could be found again and placed on a GIS map.

The photos have already resulted in inspections by NJDEP compliance officers and meetings set up with officials from two town.

The objective of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network’s photo-documentation project is to show municipal officials and the general public what the source of the problems on the Newton Creek Watershed are and why it’s wasting tax-payer money and bad for the environment to continue to only focus on activities such as dredging, aeration and chemical treatment, which are only symptoms of a bigger stormwater management problem.

View the photo essay below:

Overview

The Newton Creek Watershed is located in Camden County New Jersey with its headwaters located in suburban Collingswood, Haddonfield and Haddon Heights and its confluence with the Delaware in the City of Camden. The Newton is a small (13.6 sq mi), urbanized watershed consisting of 11 municipalities.  It is approximately 38%   Multiple historic mill dams have created several manmade lakes that are now extremely popular parks.

As a result of past and present land use, including industrial in Gloucester and Camden cities, as well as densely developed, older residential with little or no stormwater management infrastructure, water quality in the Newton Creek does not meet state water quality standards. In fact, it is listed as an “impaired waterway” by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) indicating that it does not measure up to the standards required for maintenance of healthy aquatic communities of wildlife, especially of fish and smaller creatures at the base of the food chain. Based on DEP assessments, Newton Creek is characterized as having excessive siltation, nutrient enrichment, inadequate stormwater management, diminished stream base flows, nonpoint source pollution impacts, degraded habitat, and frequent nuisance flooding.

Over the past 15 years, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network has been actively engaged in a variety of efforts ranging from water quality monitoring, the preservation of Saddlers Woods, an old growth forest, advocating for riparian buffers, design and installation of several green stormwater infrastructure, trained volunteers to photo-document nonpoint pollution sources, leading stormwater driving tours and even sponsored a snakehead fishing contest.

Camden County is now proposing to dredge 260,000 cubic yards of sediment from the Newton and its largest tributary, the Peter’s Creek.  DRN and other members of the Newton Creek Dredging Task Force submitted joint comments to NJDEP on Camden County’s proposed 260,000 CY dredging project. The Newton and Peters are older, suburban watersheds and so, like many similar communities throughout the Delaware River Watershed, are recipients of large volumes of sediment and urban nonpoint pollution. Our comments focused on protecting sufficient areas of shallow water littoral zones that provide important aquatic habitat and wadding bird foraging area and the choice of dewatering technology. Not all dewatering is the same with some allowing significant amounts of dredged contaminants to actually flow back into the waterway. DRN’s strategy that we believe will result in better post-dredging water quality started with meeting with the County to discuss what actions need to be taken upstream to reduce the volume of runoff and increase infiltration. We focused on the many innovative stormwater green infrastructure in this watershed. Our strategy also included calling and meeting with NJDEP permit review team to establish a relationship with them, walking the dewatering sites, partnering with the impacted stakeholders, including fishing clubs, municipal environmental commissions and Sustainability Teams and making sure our comments not only pointed out our areas of concern, of which there were many, but also any positive aspects in the permits.

Editor’s note: This issue is currently dormant. We will continue monitoring the situation and may take up the issue in the future.

Overview

The Mohican Lake Homeowners, which only represented a portion of the residents around Mohican Lake, used the presence of an invasive aquatic plant (Myriophyllum spicatum) to conduct broad herbicide treatments in the tannic-water lake over the objections of other lake residents, particularly the Mohican Lake Resort.  Despite multiple problems with the permit applications and objections from lake residents, NYDEC issued permits in two subsequent years to allow herbicide treatments.  Clearly this was not intended to be an invasive species control effort, but instead an overall aquatic plant reduction effort (primarily native aquatic plants) to make the lake recreation more compatible with high-intensity uses (motor boats, water skiing, jet skiing) compared to passive recreation (kayaking).

Overview

On April 19, 2012, DRN provided notice of its intent to sue the Italian American Sportmen’s Club (IASC) under the Environmental Rights Act for its longtime violations of New Jersey’s Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act (FWPA). For the last ten (10) years, IASC has failed to record a conservation easement required by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on a portion of the IASC property it is now attempting to sell for development.
 
In 2001, DEP granted IASC a wetlands transition area waiver allowing IASC to develop property in the buffer area of wetlands provided IASC record a conservation easement on a portion of its neighboring property. More than ten (10) years later, the project has been long completed, however, IASC has yet to record the conservation easement. This is a clear violation of the FWPA. Now, IASC is attempting to sell the should-be restricted property. The prospective buyer, Sharbell Development Corporation, plans to subdivide the property and build fifty-two (52) single-family residences, including on the area that should be protected by the easement. While DEP issued IASC a notice of violation ten (10) months ago for its noncompliance with the freshwater wetlands laws, IASC still remains in violation and DEP still fails to take the appropriate enforcement action.
 
Update: In 2014, NJDEP held public hearings to decide whether the conservation easement could be vacated and released. DRN submitted comments and expert testimony arguing for the conservation to remain in place. Nearly two years later, NJDEP rejected the developer’s proposal to vacate the conservation easement and has required developer to file a conversation easement. In February 2016, the easement was filed. 

Overview

A stream is not just the water that flows through a channel.  A stream includes its bed, its banks, and the lands that run along its length. The land along our streams and rivers is an essential and living part of the stream ecosystem.  To be healthy, a stream needs its adjacent lands to be covered with healthy, varied and native vegetation.  

Vegetated buffers provide a living cushion between our upland land uses and our living streams providing important protections to both the stream and our human communities.  Vegetated buffers help protect our communities from non-natural flooding – the soils and vegetation soak up and hold floodwaters, gently releasing them after the storm has passed. This flood protection reduces flood damages in our communities as well as minimizing the need for costly emergency response. Vegetated buffers filter out pollution, that washed from the land as well as that already in the water thereby protecting our drinking water as well as our special places for  boating, swimming, fishing and birding.  Vegetated buffers  protect and improve our local economies – they increase the market value and marketability of nearby homes; they support the qualities needed to sustain a healthy ecotourism industry, and they provide the clean and fresh water needed to support a variety of industry and waterside needs.  Vegetated buffers help encourage infiltration of rainfall and runoff helping to keep our underground aquifers flowing and available during times of drought.  Vegetated buffers protect public and private lands from erosion. And, vegetated buffers provide essential habitat, in stream and on the land, for aquatic life, birds, wildlife, amphibians and reptiles.  
  
When we devegetate and fill our riparian buffer areas we not only destroy their ability to provide these community benefits, but the opposite harmful reaction results — rather than flood storage we have increased flooding; rather than aquifer recharge we have increased drought; rather than healthy streamside lands and habitats we have erosion and degraded ecosystems; and so on.

It is essential we protect our vegetated buffers for the health of our streams and our communities. 

How Much of a Buffer Should Be Protected?

In general, riparian buffers should be as wide as possible.  The bigger the buffer the more pollution it can filter, the better habitat it can provide, the more water it can absorb, hold and infiltrate.  
A wealth of new science focused on buffers is taking place.  These studies are telling us that a minimum 100 foot buffer is best for protecting water quality, for preventing and removing pollution, and for protecting habitats in the stream and on the land.  In a number of instances buffers ranging from 300 to 1000 feet are being recommended, or even required, in order to provide the greatest level of protection our natural waterways and habitats need.  When focused on bird life and wildlife the buffer minimum  is tending towards 300 feet or greater.  In this case too, bigger is definitely better – providing better quality habitat and needed migration paths for a variety of wildlife.  
  
Also very important to the effective functioning of a riparian buffer is the quality and mix of vegetation. Characteristics such as species diversity, vegetation type, physical condition and maturity all affect the ability of the buffer to do its job. The forested buffer which includes a mix of plants, shrubs, and trees can work on steep slopes, where other vegetation, especially grass, and other BMPs may be difficult to install and maintain. 

Delaware Riverkeeper Network is working to get requirements at the state and regional level that ensure protective buffers for all streams in the watershed. We were leaders on the successful effort to get 300 foot buffer requirements for C-1 streams in NJ and 150 foot buffers on exceptional value and high quality streams in Pennsylvania.

In 2018, the Delaware Riverkeeper Netowrk released a report documenting the tremendous value of natural riparian buffers.