The Cost of Clean Water in the Delaware River Basin (USA)

Gerald Kauffman

doi:10.3390/w10020095

Abstract

The Delaware River has made a marked recovery in the half-century since the adoption of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) Compact in 1961 and passage of the Federal Clean Water Act amendments during the 1970s. During the 1960s, the DRBC set a 3.5 mg/L dissolved oxygen criterion for the river based on an economic analysis that concluded that a waste load abatement program designed to meet fishable water quality goals would generate significant recreational and environmental benefits. Scientists with the Delaware Estuary Program have recently called for raising the 1960s dissolved oxygen criterion along the Delaware River from 3.5 mg/L to 5.0 mg/L to protect anadromous American shad and Atlantic sturgeon, and address the prospect of rising temperatures, sea levels, and salinity in the estuary. This research concludes, through a nitrogen marginal abatement cost (MAC) analysis, that it would be cost-effective to raise dissolved oxygen levels to meet a more stringent standard by prioritizing agricultural conservation and some wastewater treatment investments in the Delaware River watershed to remove 90% of the nitrogen load by 13.6 million kg N/year (30 million lb N/year) for just 35% ($160 million) of the $449 million total cost. The annual least cost to reduce nitrogen loads and raise dissolved oxygen levels to meet more stringent water quality standards in the Delaware River totals $45 million for atmospheric NOX reduction, $130 million for wastewater treatment, $132 million for agriculture conservation, and $141 million for urban stormwater retrofitting. This 21st century least cost analysis estimates that an annual investment of $50 million is needed to reduce pollutant loads in the Delaware River to raise dissolved oxygen levels to 4.0 mg/L, $150 million is needed for dissolved oxygen levels to reach 4.5 mg/L, and $449 million is needed for dissolved oxygen levels to reach 5.0 mg/L.

Highlights

Nutrient pollution due to high loads of nitrogen and phosphorus causes costly impacts on the tourism, commercial fishing, recreation, hunting, real estate, and water treatment sectors of the economy [1]
Since the USGS SPAtially Referenced Regressions on Watershed (SPARROW) model calibrates the nitrogen load estimates with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) STORET water quality monitoring data, the model is well correlated as coefficients of determination (r2 ) are 0.83 for yield and 0.97 for load, which explains 83% to 97% of the variance between the predictive model and observed water quality data
We reviewed a survey of 15 Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) models by Scatena et al [44] in the lower Delaware River suggests that achieving a dissolved oxygen target of 5.0 mg/L would require a 32% reduction that suggests that achieving a dissolved oxygen target of 5.0 mg/L would require a 32% in nitrogen to water bodies, within a range from to 48% (75th percentile) reductionloading in nitrogen loading to water bodies, within a range

Summary

Introduction

Nutrient pollution due to high loads of nitrogen and phosphorus causes costly impacts on the tourism, commercial fishing, recreation, hunting, real estate, and water treatment sectors of the economy [1]. Noting that 50% of the nation’s streams have medium to high nutrient levels and 78% of coastal waters experience eutrophication, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has urged states to adopt numeric nutrient criteria to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loads on U.S waters [2]. Nutrient load reduction costs in the nation’s waters are significant and range from $35 million/year in the 16,500 km Wisconsin Fox-Wolf River watershed [3] to $203 million/year in the 26,200 km Connecticut. 166,000 km Chesapeake Bay watershed could cost $1 billion/year. Rabotyagov et al [6] estimated a cost of $1.8 billion/year to reduce nutrient loads and increase dissolved oxygen levels in the 492,000 km. Lyon and Farrow [7] reported to the EPA that the Federal Clean Water

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Conclusion