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Photo Credit: Rick Darke |
UD Issues Watershed Report CardArticle adapted from the UD Daily |
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UD Issues Watershed Report Card on the White Clay Creek National Wild and Scenic River (adapted from an article by Gerald Kauffman written for the UD Daily)
On June 3, 2008, UD’s Martha Corrozi and Gerald Kauffman issued a state of the watershed report on the White Clay Creek National Wild and Scenic River to nearly 100 partners gathered to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the National Wild and Scenic River Act. Corrozi and Kauffman prepared the report for the U. S. National Park Service and the White Clay Creek Wild and Scenic River Management Committee. This work is congruent with UD President Patrick Harker’s strategic plan that positions the University of Delaware to be a national leader in environmental sustainability as a green campus to cross-pollinate interdisciplinary learning in environmental and water resources programs.
The White Clay Creek begins in the headwaters in Chester County, Pennsylvania and flows into New Castle County, Delaware through the UD campus in Newark, In 1968, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to protect the free flowing status of high quality rivers in the USA. In 2000, Delaware Senator Joe Biden introduced legislation and President Clinton and Congress signed the law designating the White Clay Creek as a national wild and scenic river for its unique ecology and outstandingly remarkable resources in the midst of the densely populated mid-Atlantic corridor. The White Clay Creek is the first wild and scenic river in the United States designated on a watershed basis instead of the typical river corridor basis. The University of Delaware is one of the only land grant colleges in the nation (along with Colorado State University) to have a national wild and scenic river flowing through campus thus providing a unique on-campus research and education laboratory for students and faculty.
The report card graded landscape, hydrology, water quality, and habitat to assess the health of the wild and scenic river. Grades range from an “A” for the large amount of open space in the watershed, to a “B” for high dissolved oxygen levels, to “C” for declining macroinvertebrate populations. While watershed population has doubled over 30 years and forests have lost 3 square miles over a decade, water quality as measured by dissolved oxygen, sediment, and phosphorus has improved significantly over the last several decades. State and local governments have acquired almost 20 square miles of parks and open space in the White Clay valley since 1968 and the two states stock 20 miles of streams rainbow with trout. However, some streams remained impaired by high levels of nitrogen and fish consumption advisories are in effect due to high PCB levels dumped prior to 1970. The White Clay Creek watershed is the home to over 100 species of birds including the neotropical migrant cerulean warbler and the recovering bald eagle. Fish abundance surveys have counted over two dozen fresh and salt water fish in the creek such as brook trout, striped bass, and American shad. This semester, UD civil and environmental engineering students in CIEG 467 Watershed Engineering conducted field studies along the White Clay Creek and examined the feasibility of installing fish ladders at low dams to restore historic American shad runs.
Partners from both states attending the White Clay Creek Wild and Scenic River celebration at the Deerfield Country Club north of Newark included staff from the offices of Delaware Congressman Mike Castle andSenators Joe Biden and Tom Carper, and Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Pitts. Local Delaware leaders attending were Delaware State Senator Liane Sorenson, Newark Mayor Vance Funk, New Castle County Council President Paul Clark, Newark City Councilmen Dave Athey and Doug Tuttle, London Britain Township Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Aileen Parrish, Franklin Township Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Richard Whipple, U. S. National Park Service Program Manager Chuck Barscz, and River Administrator and Newark resident Linda Stapleford. The Management Committee was also honored to receive proclamations recognizing the National Wild & Scenic River’s 40 years of protecting outstanding rivers across the United States and the White Clay Creek Watershed Management Committee’s 8 years of contributing locally from: Rep. Joseph Pitts of the United States House of Representatives; Rep. Arthur Hershey and Chris Ross of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives; and Mayor Vance Funk of the City of Newark.
Partners collaborating with UD include the Stroud Water Research Laboratory, Brandywine Conservancy, the Natural Lands Trust, Delaware Division and Fish and Wildlife and Division of Parks and Recreation, Pennsylvania Boat Commission, and Coalition for Natural Stream Valleys co-founder Dorothy Miller.
Martha Corrozi is Assistant Policy Scientist and Gerald Kauffman is Director of the Water Resources Agency in the University of Delaware, Institute for Public Administration. Martha is serving a three year term as authorized by the National Wild and Scenic River Act as Delaware co-chairwoman of the Wild and Scenic White Clay Creek Watershed Management Committee and is the first President of the Delaware Section of the American Water Resources Association. Jerry served as Delaware Watershed Management Committee co-chairman from 2001 – 2004 and holds secondary faculty appointments in the UD School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
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