A coalition of leading environmental organizations – the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, PennFuture, Clean Air Council, Environment New Jersey, and Penn Environment – submitted a 17-page legal Petition (Petition) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urging the federal government to override the regional Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) and “promptly initiate rulemaking” necessary to protect aquatic life in the Delaware Estuary, including the federally endangered Atlantic Sturgeon that are the brink of extinction.

The Petition states that “because the DRBC is failing to discharge its duty to protect the health of the Delaware River Estuary at the expense of valuable aquatic life—including the federally endangered Atlantic Sturgeon” and because the 4 watershed states have similarly failed to carry out needed protections, “Petitioners now request of the EPA to promptly exercise its Clean Water Act Section 303(c)(4)(B) authority to prepare and publish proposed regulations setting forth a revised [Water Quality Standards] that includes a designated use for fish “propagation” and upgraded D.O. criteria to support that revised designated use.”

According to the petition, the DRBC and the watershed states have failed to recognize that the Delaware Estuary, from Trenton to the top of the Bay, is being used for maintenance and propagation of resident fish and other aquatic life; as well as for spawning and nursery habitat for anadromous fish; and have similarly failed to take action to institute water quality legal standards essential for protecting critical species such as the federally endangered Atlantic Sturgeon of the River.

According to the organizations, the Delaware River Basin Commission, and the four watershed states, have been repeatedly and formally urged to recognize these aquatic life uses, and to upgrade associated water quality protections, particularly dissolved oxygen standards.

These requests, dating back more than a decade, have failed to spark needed protective action other than additional scientific research which the organizations say is unneeded given the robust scientific data already available on the record.

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