Reservoir management in flux: Inflexible on flexible flow plan? By Laurie Ramie, Executive Director of the Upper Delaware Council

The Upper Delaware Council was investigating developments in the Flexible Flow Management Plan (FFMP) 2017 renewal process. The FFMP is the agreement among the 1954 Decree Parties (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York City) for how the city’s Delaware River Basin reservoirs will be managed.
The interim plan must be acted upon by the June 1st start of the new “water year” with unanimous consent to any changes.
It has been subject to one-year extensions for the past five years with no significant adjustments, despite pleas from the public and groups like the UDC for more consistent releases and consideration of adopting a thermal stress relief protocol to protect the aquatic habitat and economy.
At the Feb. 16 meeting of the Delaware River Basin Commission’s Regulated Flow Advisory Committee, Chairman Brenan Tarrier (N.Y.) stated, “The Parties are still negotiating” and attempting to address “various and often competing objectives” in recognition that “the FFMP must remain flexible to accommodate changing conditions.”
New Jersey representative Steven Domber, however, then read a statement demanding that seven “incremental but wide-ranging equitable improvements” to the FFMP be made immediately while a “thorough and transparent assessment” of the entire operational plan is pursued.
“NJ seeks agreement from the Decree Parties on these concepts before proceeding to further negotiations,” Domber said. “At this time NJ is not able to commit to a one-year extension of the current FFMP as other options are being more seriously considered if reform is not achievable.”
If no FFMP is in place by May 31, management will revert back to “Revision 1," which the Friends of the Upper Delaware River, calls “a devastating step backwards for the cold water ecosystem of the Upper Delaware River” due to drastically decreased releases all year.