History of the Delaware River Watershed

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*CONTENTS (click on each to jump to section)

HISTORICAL IMPROVEMENTS

Colonial Settlement

	The Delaware River Watershed has long been a life-source for inhabitants in these regions.
	It is believed that the earliest settlers in this area, the hunter-gatherer Paleo Native Americans, used the river and bay and the surrounding lands for food, transportation, and trade roughly 12,000-13,000 years ago, with little resulting damage to the river's ecosystem.
	Other tribes later moved into the area, one of whom was the woodland Native American Lenape (Le-náh-pay) who made conservative use of the Delaware River system to serve their needs for hundreds of years starting from about 1,400 years ago until the time that a new wave of settlers arrived from overseas (Webster, 1996).
	The Lenape called the river "Lenape Wihittuck" ("the river of the Lenape"), and they lived, fished, and farmed along its banks, using it wisely, mainly for food and water for their small farms of beans, corn, pumpkins, squash, and tobacco, among other things.
	However, that situation began to change for the worse in the 1600s when Europeans arrived on eastern American shores, and brought with them not only a greater number of settlers to the watershed, but also rapid industrialization and exploitation of this important resource.
	The Europeans called the river the "Delaware" and referred to the Lenape who lived along its banks as "the Delawares" (Bryant and Pennock, 1988).

	Until colonial times, well-drained high ground, marshland, and extensive woodlands all made for a diverse river basin, and many of the current geographical areas in the watershed still bear their original Native American names, which indicated some aspect of the land's physiography or natural conditions.
	For example, "Kittatinny," a mountain in the northern part of the watershed, means "mighty mountain;" Cohocksink means "pinelands"; "Wissahickon" means "catfish"; "Passyunk", "a level place below hills"; and "Kingsessing" denotes a place where there is a bog (Toffey, 1982).
	Unlike their nomenclature, however, the Native Americans themselves disappeared due to westward migration relatively soon after European settlement and subsequent domination of the river, beginning in 1623 with the Dutch, who established a trading post at Fort Nassau near present day Gloucester, New Jersey, and a whaling colony near Lewes, Delaware in 1631, which was destroyed by Native Americans in 1632.
	They were followed by the Swedes, who settled at what is now Wilmington, Delaware in 1638, and then the Finns.

After Henry Hudson's brief initial stay in 1609 on the Delaware Bay (named in 1610 by English
Captain Samuel Argall after Thomas West, Lord De La Warr, the governor of the Virginia colony
[Bryant and Pennock, 1988]), the Scandinavian settlers sailed in through the bay area and also
established villages in Lewes and New Castle (formerly Fort Casimir) in Delaware; Salem and
Greenwich in New Jersey; and Upland (now Chester) in Pennsylvania (Roberts).

They controlled the region until about 1663, when the English took control of the Delaware
Estuary. Shortly thereafter, development and urbanization in the region began in earnest,
particularly in the Philadelphia area following the city's founding by William Penn in 1682.

Industrialization

*Click on each to jump to section

Industry/Coal

Pollution

War Impacts

Philadelphia

	The Delaware Estuary area was a prime choice for colonial settlement since it naturally lent itself to the establishment and success of a new civilization.
	Opportunities abounded for fishing, transportation, and trade, and soon the new European settlements in the region were connected to the rest of the world through the development of the port city of Philadelphia, an area of high, dry land conveniently bordered by the Schuylkill River on the left and the Delaware on the right.
	Colonists wasted no time clearing the woodland and filling in much of the wetlands to make way for homes and farms and to procure fuel.
	Through the use of dikes, dams, and grading of the land, former marshes were soon transformed into fertile farming ground, and throughout the 1700s agriculture was one of the foremost industries in the region, in addition to commerce and trade.
	Increasing numbers of European immigrants provided plenty of hands to work the land, and Philadelphia thus grew into a major commercial city, which soon became the nation's core of shipbuilding and world's largest freshwater port.

Industry/Coal

	By the 1770s, the Delaware Estuary region, from the bay area up to present-day Trenton, had become the focus of industry in America.
	An abundance of the necessary resources: coal, iron, water, and wood, drove industrial production (Heritage Conservancy,), and the economy of the area gradually shifted from predominantly agricultural to a more manufacturing-based system.
	In addition to tanneries, glass works, and brickyards, soon leather, lumber, paper, textile, and coal mills popped up along the river and spewed their waste into its waters.
	Anthracite coal was abundant in the eastern section of the watershed, especially in Pennsylvania between the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers in Lehigh, Schuylkill, and Wyoming Counties (Rhone, 1902) where the majority of the nation's 7 billion tons of anthracite coal is located (DEP, http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/enved/go_with_inspector/coalmine/ Anthracite_Coal_Mining.htm).
	Coal was also discovered at the headwaters of the Delaware in the late 1700s.
	Besides being a valuable fuel resource, the mines provided a number of jobs and a new economic backbone for the region.
	Consequently, many mining towns were established in these coal counties, staffed in large part by the European immigrants that were flooding into America at the time.
	The massive amounts of anthracite that these regions yielded contributed greatly to the economy of the colonies.
	In the 11 years between 1860 and 1871, approximately 300,000 acres of coal lands were bought or leased by the leading coal companies (DEP, http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/mines/reclaimpa/interestingfacts/ A%20BRIEF%20HISTORY%20OF%20COAL%20MINING.html), and in 1914, employment in this industry peaked with about 181,000 men working the mines in Pennsylvania. Mining reached its hey day in 1917 when more than 100 million tons of coal were mined from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton region (DEP, http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/enved/go_with_inspector/coalmine/ Anthracite_Coal_Mining.htm).

Pollution

	The coal was shipped down canals on the Susquehanna and Schuylkill rivers, over land via wagons, or by rail on the Lehigh Valley Railroad to eastern markets in cities like Philadelphia for use in the rapidly developing iron and steel industries, as well as for the new trains, which required large amounts of fuel.
	The coal pier at Port Richmond on the Delaware is a current reminder of those days gone by.
	Pollution from past and present mining operations is another reminder of the significant amount of mining that was and still is carried out in this section of the watershed.
	Waste from the mines that was dumped or leaked into the rivers caused turbidity and contamination as sulfur from the rocks mixed with oxygen and water, making the water highly acidic.
	Over 2,400 of the 54,000 miles of streams in Pennsylvania have been polluted by acid mine drainage from mining operations since the 1700s.
	In fact, acid mine drainage (AMD) is the single largest source of water pollution in Pennsylvania, a problem the state has been combating since 1913, when Act 375 was passed in order to prohibit the discharge of anthracite coal, culm (fine particles of coal and clay), or refuse into streams.
	Since then, additional legislation has been necessary to protect water resources within the watershed (DEP, http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/enved/go_with_inspector/ coalmine/Environmental_Laws.htm), and thirteen AMD treatment plants have been built throughout Pennsylvania (at a cost of $20.7 million) to treat AMD discharges.

	However, AMD discharges were not the only pollution problem in the watershed.
	As the Industrial Revolution began to creep into the colonies at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the waterfront developed into a hotspot for manufacturing and shipping.
	The quick rate at which this development occurred and the pollution that resulted from such rapid residential and commercial growth stressed the limits of the river's resources.
	Problems soon developed as a result of the drastic changes the new settlers were making to the land and waterways within the watershed.
	The clearing of such great expanses of wooded areas left formerly tree-covered land open and vulnerable to erosion.
	Soil and sediment ran off into the rivers.
	Sewage from new farms and residences was dumped into the rivers, which clogged ports and ship engines.
	Prior to the mid-1800s, the colonists had buried their sewage in privies in their backyards, but when they realized burial posed a threat to public health, they began discharging it directly into the water by way of drains that carried the untreated waste from the inland areas (Toffey, 1982).
	These pollutants and the nutrients that washed from farmland changed the chemical balance of the river and adversely affected aquatic life and water quality.
	In addition, the filling in of wetlands and tidal flatlands for the construction of buildings significantly decreased the shoreline and polluted the wetlands, which also were often the dumping grounds for untreated sewage.
	Vital areas of shallow waters that had previously sustained diverse aquatic life and provided spawning ground for fish were lost to pollution and development.
	It is believed that only 500 of an estimated 7,000 acres of shallows that existed at the time of Philadelphia's founding were still viable three hundred years later in 1982 (Toffey, 1982).

	The majority of the damage done to the river and shoreline was concentrated mainly within the heavily industrialized estuary region from Wilmington, DE north to the tidal waters at Trenton, NJ, especially near the major cities of Philadelphia and Trenton, which were the largest sources of pollution.
	The less-populated upper half of the watershed above Trenton, where agriculture was still the predominant economic activity and development proceeded more slowly, was not so severely affected.

	As one English visitor to the Philadelphia harbor in 1769 succinctly put it, the Delaware Waterfront near Philadelphia was a "mess," a finding confirmed by the first pollution survey conducted in 1799, which found that pollution from ships, sewers, and contaminated wetlands was threatening the health of the river (Webster, 1996).
	Soon, the health of colonists themselves, who relied on the Delaware for drinking water, was also in jeopardy.
	Rivers polluted with human and industrial waste were held responsible for cholera outbreaks from tannery pollution in the 1700s, a vicious yellow fever epidemic that killed 10% of Philadelphia's population in one year alone in the 1790s, and outbreaks of typhoid in the 1890s that plagued urban areas in the watershed.

	Pollution levels continued to increase as the Industrial Revolution reached full swing in the mid-1800s.
	Former fishing towns such as Fishtown, Kensington, and Richmond took on new roles as manufacturing centers, and more piers were built to ship coal, wood, and other goods from these coastal centers (Toffey, 1982).
	Small industrial mills on the waterfront morphed into large factories with greater discharges of waste.
	Coal, iron steel, gunpowder, and textile mills, shipbuilding factories, tanneries, and chemical industries, etc., all used and abused the Delaware River.

	As a result of decades of continuous contamination, the health of the river rapidly deteriorated.
	By the end of the 1800s, the fisheries that had flourished in the early days of colonial settlement were hurting for business on account of over-fishing and the excessively polluted water that contained too little oxygen to support much aquatic life (Webster, 1996).
	In just over a century's time, the riverfront had changed from a predominantly wild, wooded area supported by a clean, healthy river teeming with life in pre-colonial times, to a farming and recreational area whose river supported the needs of new settlements throughout the 1700s, to a dangerously polluted hub of industrial manufacturing beginning in the early 1800s.
	In the estuary, contaminated water could not even sustain aquatic life and was no longer safe to drink, swim in, or even breathe near the river due to noxious odors from raw sewage that was dumped into it on a daily basis.

War Impacts

	By the 1940s, World War II efforts kicked manufacturing into overdrive once again.
	It appeared that colonial industrialization efforts within the estuary region perhaps had not been justified by the damaging means it had taken to reach them.
	While the estuary was an industrial giant with a major world port in the metropolis of Philadelphia, the economic success of the estuarine colonies was a Pyrrhic victory for the region as a whole, on account of the heavy environmental cost.
	The land was stripped and stressed from years of clearing, poor farming practices (colonists did not know about crop rotation to maintain soil fertility), erosion and pollution.
	The sewage from residential and industrial waste depleted oxygen levels to an extreme that nearly drove fisheries out of business and left the rivers virtually dead.
	It is estimated that 85% of Philadelphia's untreated residential waste was discharged directly into the estuary in the 1940s (Marrazzo and Panzitta, 1984).
	As Christopher Roberts (Delaware River Basin Commission) explained it, "the lower Delaware had become an open sewer, spewing septic gases that tarnished ships' metalwork and sickened sailors (Roberts, 1989)."
	In this way, colonial waste disposal practices made what had once been a pristine, healthy, flowing life source into a stagnant, lifeless, noxious cesspool often referred to as the "black waters" during that time, a period that is recognized as the Delaware's darkest hour (Toffey, 1982).

	Riverfront land suffered from industrialization and overuse as well.
	Factories and transportation thoroughfares had replaced trees and wild land, leaving the waterfront with little remaining open recreational space or aesthetic value.
	One such area in which these effects were felt particularly strongly was about 2-3 miles below the Fairmount Dam on the Schuylkill River, where even the few remaining large estates and the Gray's Ferry gardens were cleared away during the Industrial Revolution to accommodate more factories and railroads (Toffey, 1982).

Transportation

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Railroads

Canals

	Contributing to the region's economic success and pollution in the early 1800s were the extensive transportation networks constructed during this time.
	Canals and railroads, which linked regional centers of agriculture and commerce, facilitated the widespread movement of people and products and played a large role in the population and economic growth of the region.
	Two major canals that contributed to the transformation of the watershed in eastern Pennsylvania were the Lehigh Canal and the Delaware Canal.
	The former was used to transport anthracite coal through the Lehigh River Valley from Mauch Chunk to Easton, PA; the latter moved coal, lumber, and agricultural products from Easton to Philadelphia and other East Coast markets.
	Linking the Delaware Valley to eastern New Jersey were the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the Morris Canal (Fulcomer and Corbett, 1981).
	Canals were especially influential along the Schuylkill River, whose waters were too fast and shallow to allow easy transportation prior to their construction.

	The new water linkages were vital to inland travel and especially important in the shipment of coal from the Upper Schuylkill area and other mining regions farther north in the watershed downstream to Philadelphia.
	On March 15, 1784, the Legislature of Pennsylvania ratified an act that was "for the purpose of improving the navigation of the Schuylkill (river) so as to make it passable at all times, enabling the inhabitants to bring their produce to market, furnishing the county adjoining the same and the City of Philadelphia with coal, masts, boards," etc. (DEP, http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/enved/go_with_inspector/ coalmine/anthracite.htm).
	Unfortunately, canals were also instrumental in carrying pollution from outlying areas, particularly from coal mines, downstream into the rivers.
	Besides polluting drinking water, the millions of tons of culm that were dumped or leaked from the mines ruined fish habitats, backed up behind dams, and reduced the ability of the rivers to manage stormwater (Toffey, 1982).

Railroads

	The speed of railroads, which were introduced in the early 1800s, made them a more convenient form of transportation, which was responsible for driving much of the urban development in the watershed, and by the 1930s, the canal system was virtually obsolete.
	Some canals were filled in to make roads, while others simply fell into disuse, later to become landmarks and state park attractions (Heritage Conservancy).
	Although trains continued to be used for the transportation of agricultural products, by the 1840s the rail lines were also heavily relied upon for industrial purposes: to move raw materials to factories and finished manufactured goods to markets and ports.
	In fact, many rail terminals were built right up to the Delaware River to hasten exportation.
	Initially, such easy access to the riverfront brought more residents into contact with the area, where they sought various forms of recreation such as walks along the waterfront.
	However, much of the waterfront's recreational value was lost as it became more industrialized and polluted, and the rails then provided a means of escape from the busy area's smoke-spewing factories and foul-smelling river.
	Trains, and later streetcars and improved roads, took people farther inland away from the waterfront "mess," and contributed to the growth of Philadelphia's suburbs.

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