August 23, 2005

LNG terminal dispute between states of NJ and Delaware

New Jersey recently asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop Delaware from standing in the way of plans by New Jersey and BP Crown Landing LLC to build a liquefied natural gas import terminal in Logan Township, across the [Delaware River] from Claymont.

A boundary quirk from Colonial days gave all of the waterway from Claymont to the northern tip of Artificial Island to Delaware. Because most of the proposed 2,000-foot delivery pier at the LNG site would stand in Delaware, the state has argued the LNG project would violate its Coastal Zone Act ban on new bulk delivery docks in the river.

If built, the terminal would receive up to three tankerloads of LNG weekly, each carrying as much as 50 million gallons of the superchilled fuel. The terminal would be capable of storing enough natural gas to meet the daily energy needs of 5 million homes.

[Source: Victor Greto (delawareonline.com) , "How much industry can a river take? South of Trenton, the Delaware is a commercial hub, tainted by pollution", The News Journal (DE), August 23, 2005]

Delaware River - worst pollution was in 1950s-60s, but old problems and new still exist

Despite the Athos spill, the quality of the water in the Delaware has improved. Many who have lived along or worked on the river say it's cleaner than it has been in decades. Out on the river north of Chester, Pa., by the former home of Scott Paper, Hickman Rowland, a 30-year veteran of the river, can see the improvements. "Years ago, you could tell what color toilet paper Scott was making by the color of the water here," says Rowland, owner of Wilmington Tug. "One day it was pink, the next blue." Now, it's more often than not a dependable murky gray, speckled with gulls, herons and osprey.

The worst period for pollution in the river was during the 1950s and 1960s, says Tom Fikslin, a water-quality scientist with the Delaware River Basin Commission. "Much of the cleaning up required upgrades of sewage-treatment plants," which had been spewing raw sewage into the river for decades, he says. Levels of fecal coliform bacteria, the presence of which indicates that the water has been contaminated with the fecal material of people or other animals, dropped dramatically in summer samplings of the river in Philadelphia in the past 35 years. Fecal coliform levels dropped from more than 20,000 organisms per 100 milliliters in 1965 to nearly zero today. As levels of this bacteria dropped, oxygen levels in the water, radically low in the mid-1960s, have risen dramatically, allowing fish to breathe.

But the return of fish brought a new problem to light. PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are highly toxic synthetic materials used mostly in electrical insulators. Although the Environmental Protection Agency banned PCB production in 1979, a lot of usable equipment still contains them. "When the fish came back after we cleaned up the river, we found they were full of PCBs," Fikslin says. PCBs build up in the environment, usually sticking to soil or sediments and remaining there for years. They have been found in the air, water and food and get into fish through contaminated water, sediment or food eaten by the fish. These PCBs build up in the fish and can reach dangerous levels. In March, the Delaware Division of Wildlife issued a ban on eating fish caught north of the C&D Canal because of the presence of PCBs and other chemicals, including mercury. From the canal to the bay, it issued more limited warnings about striped bass, catfish, American eel, white perch and bluefish, also because of PCBs.

But it's not just industry's fault. For sources of river pollution, industry has become second to stormwater runoff, Fikslin says. To put it simply, Fikslin says, there's no place for the increased storm runoff from development upstream to go except into the tributaries and the river. "The water quality has improved," Klein says. "But there are many problems, and water in the tributaries is getting worse."

[Source: Victor Greto (delawareonline.com) , "How much industry can a river take? South of Trenton, the Delaware is a commercial hub, tainted by pollution", The News Journal (DE), August 23, 2005]

Delaware River - #2 nationally in oil traffic, but no continuous environmental monitoring

... the development of the oil refinery business during the 20th century that has powered the [Delaware River] region's importance to new heights. Of the 2,637 ships that plowed through this part of the river last year, 764 were oil tankers; the second largest number of ships, 435, carried fruit, a third of which goes through the Port of Wilmington, the busiest terminal on the river... This section of the Delaware is home to the worst pollution on the river, and has for centuries swallowed and, over time, digested human sewage and detritus.

Refineries, complete with their crowded pipe-like towers belching smoke and flame, dot the banks of the Delaware and its main tributary, the Schuylkill River, for miles. These refineries handle more than a million barrels of oil a day. "When you look at the 2,600 ships that come up the river yearly, about 900 are carrying chemical- and petroleum-related cargoes," says Dennis Rochford, president of maritime exchange for the Delaware River and Bay. "We're able to bring those ships up safely on a regular basis."

But inevitably, something goes wrong. During the evening of Nov. 26, 2004, the single-hulled Greek Athos I oil tanker, streaming north with the current, began to make a 180-degree right turn so it could dock against the current at the Citgo Asphalt Refinery near Paulsboro, N.J. As it turned, it twice struck a rusting ship's anchor, spilling 265,000 gallons of heavy crude oil into the water across the river from the Philadelphia International Airport. The oil spread north to the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, and as far south as Pea Patch Island near Delaware City. Although the situation was dire and took months to clean up, it was handled and coordinated well by the U.S. Coast Guard, Rochford says. The Athos spill brought the river needed attention, says Kathy Klein, executive director of the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, a nonprofit preservation group based in Wilmington. The attention, though, faded too fast. "It's fallen off the radar screen," she says.

Minor chemical and oil spills occur all the time and pollutants make their way to the river -- from the person changing his car's oil to someone dumping household chemicals on pavement. What's worse, no one knows what the long-term effects of the spills may be, says Danielle Kreeger, science coordinator for Delaware Estuary Program. "We are the second-largest oil port in the nation, and there is no continuous monitoring program looking at the effects of hydrocarbons and oil," she says, "even though there are small spills all the time."

[Source: Victor Greto (delawareonline.com) , "How much industry can a river take? South of Trenton, the Delaware is a commercial hub, tainted by pollution", The News Journal (DE), August 23, 2005]

Delaware River differences upstream and down from about Philadelphia

... in and about Philadelphia, the Delaware River is vastly different from the nearly 200-mile freshwater river that meanders south from Hancock to Trenton.

South of Trenton, the Delaware River is affected by the tides of the Atlantic Ocean more than a hundred miles south and is mainly a tool of commerce and industry, not a venue for recreation.

Geographically, the transformation begins just north of Trenton, where the earth changes from the consolidated sedimentary rocks that characterized the Piedmont plain into the gentle, looser sedimentary rocks of the coastal plain.

From Philadelphia to New Castle, the river has been commercially successful for centuries, beginning with its role as a distribution point for food grown inland. Thriving shipbuilding industries grew in Philadelphia and in Wilmington beginning in the 18th century, and steamboat lines ferrying passengers up and down the bay came of age in the 19th century.