It's an anniversary year for the Upper Delaware

Tranquil river park saw great controversy at the start By Nick Troiano LACKAWAXEN — Monday of this week marked the 30th anniversary of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River’s designation. Signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on Nov. 10, 1978, the Omnibus Parks Act included a provision to adopt 73 miles of the Delaware River into the now 40-year-old Wild and Scenic River System. The measures of the legislation are very specific and sought to maximize public and intergovernmental participation within the park’s mission to preserve the area, said John Hutzky, the Upper Delaware’s first superintendent. “It isn’t a park in the traditional sense of a park,” he said. The Upper Delaware Council, which turned 20 this year, is made up of various entities and primarily oversees park affairs. The vast majority of land within the Upper Delaware is privately owned, stretching from Hancock to Sparrowbush, N.Y. Among its plentiful environmental resources, the Upper Delaware boasts the longest unimpounded stretch of flowing water in the eastern United States, over 200 species of birds, and the most critical habitat for bald eagles in the region. An estimated 500,000 annual visitors are also attracted to the Upper Delaware’s cultural resources, such as Lackawaxen’s Zane Grey Museum and John Roebling’s Delaware Aqueduct; a wire suspension bridge, now the nation’s oldest in existence. Hutzky said the federal designation of the Upper Delaware afforded the park protections that help sustain it as an unspoiled, tranquil and pristine river valley. Most recently, for example, these guidelines prohibited high-power transmission lines from crossing through the corridor and prevented hydroelectric facilities from being constructed along Shohola Creek. Yet the tranquilly now associated with the Upper Delaware is not exactly what comes to Hutzky’s mind when reflecting on the early days of his 16-year tenure. There were great tensions between the National Park Service and local residents, which boiled over from the days of the failed Tocks Island Dam project. As a result, Hutzky claims to be the only National Park Superintendant to have been hung in effigy from a manure spreader by protestors. “People were very gun-shy when the government came to the Upper Delaware years after Tocks Island because we were afraid the same thing would happen again,” recalls Ruth Jones, one of the main activists against the federal government’s land acquisition for the dam in the 1960’s. “But it worked out well because people were allowed to retain their land, and what was set out was still accomplished,” she said. “The Upper Delaware is a perfect example of a lesson learned,” said Lori McKean, executive director of the Eagle Institute, who called the park “the model for stewardship of nature.” She continued, “The government simply does not have the resources to come in and outright buy and operate things. The Upper Delaware’s model of cooperation is one that should be examined throughout the country.” The protected lands in this region, including the Upper Delaware, exist within 150 miles of some 35 million people. Increasingly, says John Wright, retired archeologist for the Delaware Water Gap, the lands are becoming the equivalent to New York City’s Central Park in the megalopolis that runs from Boston to Washington, DC. Hutzky says he “can only hope” that the preservation of the Upper Delaware withstands the emphasis placed on the need to create more energy resources, noting the invaluable piece of nature that continues the promise to share its resources and beauty with future generations. In a 2005 speech, Pike Count Historian George Fluhr recounted that when the Upper Delaware was still in its infancy, Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall said to the Upper Delaware Council as it met in Matamoras, “I suspect that what you are working on is a story that at some point the whole nation needs to hear and understand.” On the park’s 30th anniversary, this is the story now being told.