Jennifer Adkins, Executive Director Partnership for the Delaware Estuary Jennifer Adkins Executive Director 110 S. Poplar St, Suite 202, Wilmington, DE (302)655-4990 [email protected] Upstream-Downstream Connections in the Delaware River Watershed
Jennifer Adkins, Executive Director Partnership for the Delaware Estuary
Jennifer Adkins Executive Director
110 S. Poplar St, Suite 202, Wilmington, DE (302)655-4990 [email protected]
Upstream-Downstream Connections in the Delaware River Watershed
Partnership for the Delaware Estuary • Non-profit organization
• Leading science-based and collaborative efforts to improve the tidal Delaware River and Bay
• One of 28 National Estuary Programs - MOU with EPA, DRBC, PA, NJ, DE,PWD
• Working together for clean water, thriving fish and wildlife, and abundant recreational activities in and around the tidal Delaware River and Bay to support communities and a robust economy
Upstream – Downstream Connections… … A Story About Sediment, Shellfish, and Friends
Sediment is Born Upstream
• Wants to stay in the bossum of the Forest
• Picks up a couple of friends • Nutrients
• Contaminants
• Others try to get it back • Schuylkill Action Network
• Christina Basin Partnership
Sediment Grows Up
• Gets together with flow
• Forms powerful alliance, attracts new members from vulnerable areas • Storm water runoff
• In stream erosion
• But makes new friends • Freshwater mussels
• Macroinvertibrates
• Forests
Start
8 adult mussels No mussels
Biofiltration Potential
Slide from Dick Neves, VA Tech
Later
8 adult mussels No mussels
Slide from Dick Neves, VA Tech
Biofiltration Potential
Sediment & the City
• Makes it to the big city
• Gets into it with the law • Philadelphia Water Department
• Army Corps of Engineers
• Runs into old friends • Mussel beds
Sediment Has Mid-Life Crisis
• Turbid Middle Age
• Legal issues • Relationship with flow
• Army Corps of Engineers
• Runs into friends of friends • Oysters
Sediment Retires at the Beach!
• Settles down (by choice or coersion)
• Runs into old friends • Ribbed mussels
• Finds a good home • Tidal wetlands
Wish You Were Here!
Tidal Wetlands
Status: •421,137 acres of wetlands • 39.9% tidal (165,500 acres) Trends: • 2.2% loss 1996-2006 • Largest loss in lower bayshore (NJ 7%!)
Next Generation Sediment On Its Way ?!
• New Friends & Partners Needed!
State of the Estuary 2012
Sediment is the main character Shelfish are our heroes, but there are others too:
• forests • macros • wetlands
In This Story…
Questions? Thanks! [email protected]