Debate over Delaware designation

Marian Schweighofer agrees with the Delaware River’s recent designation as being on top of the list of endangered American rivers.

As a farmer in West Damascus, Schweighofer supports the river and wants to keep it from harm. In fact, three brooks on her farm feed into the Delaware.

As executive director of the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, Schweighofer also wants to set the record straight: That no natural gas drilling activity in Wayne County or anywhere in the Delaware River Watershed has made the river “toxic.”

That claim was made during a presentation by politicians and river supporters in Narrowsburg, N.Y., regarding the American Rivers Foundation’s designation of the Delaware. They spoke out about shale fracking, the drilling for natural gas.

It’s a hot topic in Wayne County. Newfield Exploration Co. has recently started drilling its first Marcellus Shale geological test well in Wayne County on private property in Manchester Township, about 20 miles north of Honesdale along Hancock Highway (Route 191).

“There’s not one well hydro-fracked in Wayne County or the river watershed,” Schweighofer stated. “And that goes from Wayne County all the way to the ocean.”

“The designation was a false promise,” she said. “Hydro-fracking hasn’t happened. It was fear-mongering, making 17 million people think, ‘Oh my goodness, this is terrible.
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Rebecca Wodder, American Rivers’ executive director, proclaimed that the Delaware is “threatened by natural gas extraction activities in the Marcellus Shale, where chemicals injected into the ground create untreatable toxic wastewater,” said Thomas J. Shepstone, owner and operator of Shepstone Management Co. in Honesdale.

“One would think a $170,000 per year professional fear-monger might come up with something more original,” said Shepstone, who attended the presentation.
Shepstone said Wodder’s group pulled the same stunt five years ago when the Susquehanna River was deemed “most threatened.”

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission countered that “while the Susquehanna River admittedly has its share of serious water quality problems, it is by no means the most endangered,” Shepstone said in a statement to The Wayne Independent.

“Now American Rivers offers the Delaware River version,” Shepstone said “It marches into our region offering its conscience in place of ours, intent upon creating a climate of hysteria contrary to all facts.  Nevertheless, facts cannot be wished away and they are not on American Rivers’ side. The Susquehanna River basin has, subsequent to its designation as “Most Endangered” in 2005 been the site of extensive Marcellus Shale gas drilling.”

Schweighofer knows that the Delaware is threatened. She said it’s threatened by reservoirs in neighboring New York state, where there are conflicts with flow management that have caused major flooding in her neck of the woods, which is about five miles from the river.

“The river is a treasure,” she said. “It’s part of our heritage. We contribute to its watershed. We don’t want it polluted.”

She stated that Newfield is even using “green” technologies such as air drilling to help protect the river.

“The reason the river is pristine and pure is because of the open space,” Schweighofer said of the countryside, which is dotted with farms and sheep and cows. “Without open space, there’s no longer lungs for the river.”

Shepstone believes that the state and its industries need to cooperate to keep the river flowing freely.

“Such cooperation will also be the key to ensuring gas drilling in the Delaware basin protects water quality,” he said. “Drilling must be responsible and subject to proper regulation that evolves with experience. Working together we can accomplish that. Divided, we will accomplish nothing; neither economic development nor environmental protection.”