Jennifer Adkins, Executive Director Partnership for the Delaware Estuary

Jennifer Adkins Executive Director

110 S. Poplar St, Suite 202, Wilmington, DE (302)655-4990 Jadkins@DelawareEstuary.org

Upstream-Downstream Connections in the Delaware River Watershed

Partnership for the Delaware Estuary • Non-profit organization

• Leading science-based and collaborative efforts to improve the tidal Delaware River and Bay

• One of 28 National Estuary Programs - MOU with EPA, DRBC, PA, NJ, DE,PWD

• Working together for clean water, thriving fish and wildlife, and abundant recreational activities in and around the tidal Delaware River and Bay to support communities and a robust economy

Upstream – Downstream Connections… … A Story About Sediment, Shellfish, and Friends

Sediment is Born Upstream

• Wants to stay in the bossum of the Forest

• Picks up a couple of friends • Nutrients

• Contaminants

• Others try to get it back • Schuylkill Action Network

• Christina Basin Partnership

Sediment Grows Up

• Gets together with flow

• Forms powerful alliance, attracts new members from vulnerable areas • Storm water runoff

• In stream erosion

• But makes new friends • Freshwater mussels

• Macroinvertibrates

• Forests

Start

8 adult mussels No mussels

Biofiltration Potential

Slide from Dick Neves, VA Tech

Later

8 adult mussels No mussels

Slide from Dick Neves, VA Tech

Biofiltration Potential

Sediment & the City

• Makes it to the big city

• Gets into it with the law • Philadelphia Water Department

• Army Corps of Engineers

• Runs into old friends • Mussel beds

Sediment Has Mid-Life Crisis

• Turbid Middle Age

• Legal issues • Relationship with flow

• Army Corps of Engineers

• Runs into friends of friends • Oysters

Sediment Retires at the Beach!

• Settles down (by choice or coersion)

• Runs into old friends • Ribbed mussels

• Finds a good home • Tidal wetlands

Wish You Were Here!

Tidal Wetlands

Status: •421,137 acres of wetlands • 39.9% tidal (165,500 acres) Trends: • 2.2% loss 1996-2006 • Largest loss in lower bayshore (NJ 7%!)

Next Generation Sediment On Its Way ?!

• New Friends & Partners Needed!

State of the Estuary 2012

Sediment is the main character Shelfish are our heroes, but there are others too:

• forests • macros • wetlands

In This Story…

Questions? Thanks! Jadkins@DelawareEstuary.org