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Frank Kummer reports for Philly.com:


Colonists started polluting the Delaware River as far back as the late 1700s when they emptied sewers, slaughterhouses and tanneries into it. By the 1950s, it was one of the most polluted waterways in the world.

But the massive cleanup that that started in the 1970s with the Clean Water Act is now threatened by a proposal to slash the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, says a report by the nonprofit advocacy organizations PennEnvironment and Frontier Group. The river is a source of drinking water for 15 million people.

“We’ve made real progress to clean up and restore the Delaware River with the support and guidance of the U.S. EPA,” said Stephanie Wein, the clean water advocate for PennEnvironment, “but this budget proposal would put all of that in jeopardy.”

Wein released the 25-page report outlining what the Trump administration plan could mean for the region during a press conference Tuesday at the Philadelphia Water Works Building overlooking the Schuylkill River and Boathouse Row. The Schuylkill is the largest tributary emptying into the Delaware River and is a key part of its watershed.

The administration has proposed a 31 percent budget cut for the EPA in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, which would cut the agency’s current $8 billion spending plan by about $2.6 billion.

The House Appropriations Committee has approved a bill that would cut the EPA budget to about $7.5 billion — about $500 million less than Trump. But the agency’s Region 3 office in Philadelphia will potentially be among the biggest hit by buyouts.


PennEnvironment says region, covering Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and New York, stands to lose collectively an estimated $20 million in grants for water pollution, drinking water protection, and non-point-source control and enforcement. Much of that is for Delaware watershed programs, Wein said.


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