DELAWARE RIVER WATERSHED INITIATIVE BUILDS ON CONSERVATION SUCCESSES

Lower Merion Conservancy leading new wave of progress for clean water protection

Gladwyne, Pennsylvania (April 4, 2018) – The Lower Merion Conservancy is leading a major project to protect clean water in Montgomery and Delaware Counties as a member of the Delaware River Watershed Initiative (DRWI). The Conservancy’s collaborative partners, focusing their efforts in the Cobbs Watershed, a major subwatershed within the Delaware, include: Darby Creek Valley Association, Eastern Delaware County Stormwater Collaborative and Pennsylvania Resources Council.

The William Penn Foundation announced more than $40 million in new funding for the DRWI, which is among the country’s largest non-governmental conservation efforts to protect and restore clean water. The DRWI is a first-of-its-kind collaboration involving 65 non-governmental organizations working together to protect and restore the Delaware River and its tributaries, which provide drinking water for 15 million people in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.

The DRWI’s bottom-up approach represents a strategic path forward for the Delaware River basin. It is a nationally significant model that demonstrates the power of an organized, independent, non-profit-driven approach that encourages partnership between communities and the philanthropic sector.

At its 2014 launch, the DRWI catalyzed local and regional groups to accelerate conservation efforts. “The Lower Merion Conservancy, along with our Cobbs Watershed partners are excited to build on the efforts and accomplishments of the last three years by collaborating with residents and institutions on solutions to capture runoff on their properties before it enters waterways, working with municipalities within the Cobbs to create strong stormwater policies and scientifically monitoring local streams,” commented Maurine McGeehan, director of the Lower Merion Conservancy.

The DRWI stands out as a basin-scale program driven by non-profits and guided by science. In just over three years DRWI partners have strategically:

• initiated projects that will protect 19,604 acres and restore an additional 8,331 acres, and
• monitored and sampled water quality at more than 500 sites across four states.

 

This additional $42 million, three-year investment builds on initial successes to protect and restore an estimated 43,484 additional acres and continue science-driven, data-informed efforts to secure clean, abundant water in the basin. The Initiative provides a replicable model that can be used to improve water health across the country.

Threats to the Delaware River basin are significant, demanding a concerted response from private landowners and local officials to protect our natural resources. The DRWI is tackling widespread pollution sources that harm clean water in our rivers and streams: erosion and runoff from deforested acres in headwaters; polluted runoff from agricultural fields; flooding and polluted stormwater from cities and suburbs; and a depleted aquifer in southern New Jersey. These growing problems will threaten drinking water for millions of people every day if left unaddressed.

“By design, The Delaware River Watershed Initiative aligns the work of 65 organizations in the Watershed to accelerate conservation,” said Andrew Johnson, program director for Watershed Protection at the William Penn Foundation. “The Initiative is rooted in the strength of these organizations individually and in their ability to collaborate using science to target the most important places for conservation. Together they are protecting and restoring those places, measuring the impact of their efforts on local streams, and learning collectively to improve their work.”

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The Lower Merion Conservancy is a member-supported, non-profit organization that protects and enhances the community’s character and quality of life by protecting open space, preserving historic architecture and conserving the local watershed.

About the Delaware River Watershed Initiative

The Delaware River Watershed Initiative is a collaboration of 65 leading nonprofit organizations that have developed shared action plans to reduce four priority threats to clean water. Informed by science, the Initiative is working in eight targeted areas, where analysis indicated that interventions could significantly safeguard or improve clean water. Together, these eight areas constitute 25 percent of the river basin and include portions of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. For more information, including a list of all participating organizations, visit www.4states1source.org.

Partner organizations: