By LAWRENCE R. HAJNA
Courier-Post Staff
A regional commission on Wednesday adopted stringent pollution-control standards meant to make the Delaware River safe for swimming and fishing.
The improvements are likely to increase the cost of sewage treatment for area residents and businesses, although the exact amount is not yet known.
Any additional costs are fine as far as Jim and Donna Millisky of Gloucester Township are concerned. The couple was taking a walk along the river at Red Bank battlefield in National Park Wednesday afternoon.
"From what I understand, the river is a lot cleaner than it used to be," Jim Millisky, 28, said while holding the couple's 17-month-old daughter, Megan. "Still, I think it will be money well spent. I think people on the whole do care about the environment."
The new rules, adopted unanimously by the Delaware River Basin Commission, restrict the discharge of toxic pollutants into the river. They are the first uniform standards for industries and sewer treatment plants in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware.
The regulations mean business and sewer treatment plants will have to spend millions of dollars to upgrade pollution control equipment, said William Palmer, director of a Valley Forge, Pa.-based industry trade group.
"As a rule, I think this is going to affect Pennsylvania and Delaware more because of the numbers of industries over there," said Palmer at the Water Resources Association of the Delaware River. "New Jersey has done more in the past in terms of tougher regulations than the other states."
The regulations could have "a substantial financial impact" on customers of the Gloucester County Utilities Authority, which serves the northern part of the county, including West Deptford, Deptford and Washington Township, said Bob Dixon, the authority's executive director.
The Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority expects only a modest increase, if any, in operating costs, said Andrew H. Kricun, the authority's planning administrator. Under a worst-case scenario, he said, the CCMUA might have to spend about $5 million on capital improvements ... an amount unlikely to affect customers' rates.
The tri-state commission adopted the standards during a meeting in Dover, Del., to help the river meet goals established by the federal Clean Water Act.
Despite years of cleanup efforts and billions spent on sewage and industrial controls, many parts of the river still fail to achieve those goals for toxic pollutants.
The DRBC's new rules set discharge standards that look at controlling pollution entering the river from the three states. Until now, each state had differing discharge standards ... with New Jersey's the toughest for toxic discharges.
The new rules ... applicable to an 86-mile tidal stretch of the river and its tributaries from Trenton to the bay ... are designed to reduce the risk of contaminants in fish and shellfish as well as drinking water.
In recent years, the three states have issued numerous fish consumption advisories because of mercury and other contaminants found in the tissues of several species of fish. A national environmental group also recently ranked the Delaware as the nation's sixth dirtiest waterway, based on toxic pollution discharged into the river.
"Shad and other fish have returned to the river but we still have fish advisories and contaminants that impair the growth and reproduction of fish," said DRBC scientist Thomas J. Fikslin.
The regulations target 83 of the region's largest dischargers of toxic pollutants, including refineries, chemical producers and sewage treatment plants that handle industrial wastes.
Numerous substances, some carcinogenic, are covered, including chlordane, PCBs, lead, mercury, DDT and volatile organic chemicals.
Each state will be responsible for enforcing the new standards. The next step is for the DRBC to allocate individual "maximum contaminant loads" for the dischargers.
The DRBC, formed in 1961 by a compact among the states, protects and manages use of the river. In the late 1960s, the DRBC took steps to develop uniform standards to improve treatment of sewage effluent, which deprived the river of oxygen that fish need to breathe. These regulations resulted in construction of regional sewage treatment plants ... such as the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority and the Gloucester County Utilities Authority.
But the individual states had developed differing standards regarding the discharge of toxins into the river.
Palmer, the trade group spokesman, said the rules should improve the health of aquatic wildlife, but he is concerned the DRBC has overlooked a much larger source of pollution ... contaminants carried into the river and its tributaries by rainwater runoff from farms, lawns, roads and parking lots.
"We are not recognizing the real problem...What we're doing here (with additional industry regulations) is infinitesimal in the whole scheme of things," Palmer said. "The river has been cleaned up significantly because of improvements to point source dischargers."
The DRBC plans to tackle the runoff problem over the next several years, Fikslin said. The agency has launched studies to determine the sources of contaminants that don't come from industries, including PCBs that may be leaking from old landfills.
While the final cleanup of the Delaware may be years ... or even decades ... away, Donna Millisky, 29, hopes her daughter can one day enjoy swimming in the river.
"It's kind of hard to believe, but it would be nice," she said. "There really aren't that many places around here where you can swim in a river or a lake."
