Shawn M. Garvin is the secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
It has been 50 years since Congress enacted a landmark piece of environmental legislation — the 1972 Clean Water Act. This bill was passed in response to the decrepit conditions of our nation’s waterways, resulting from decades of irresponsible management of municipal, industrial and agricultural wastes.
We’ve made tremendous strides since the passage of this historic and far-reaching environmental legislation. As a direct result of the act, numerous programs have been developed within the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, designed to monitor, assess, improve and protect the health of Delaware’s waters — our most precious natural resource.
Prior to the Clean Water Act, wastewater discharges to Delaware’s surface waters were largely unpermitted and unmonitored. However, through the establishment of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program, the legislation built the statutory framework to enact controls over point source pollution and decrease pollutant discharges to surface water in Delaware and across the country. Through strict pollution-reduction requirements and other permit restrictions, point source discharges have decreased in Delaware from nearly 200 facilities during the inception of Delaware’s program to just 39 industrial and municipal dischargers, 16 of which are stormwater only.
The job is not done, but building on the previous successes, the program continues to expand protection in other areas, such as addressing municipal stormwater, livestock operations, industrial stormwater discharges and aquatic pesticide application.
Nonpoint source pollution — polluted stormwater runoff associated with rainfall, snowmelt or irrigation moving over and through the ground — also threatens Delaware’s environment and public health. As this water moves, it picks up and carries pollutants with it, ultimately reaching water bodies and groundwaters. Unfortunately, unlike point source pollution, nonpoint source pollution often cannot be traced to a singular source, and sometimes, it cannot be traced at all. Often, this type of pollution is associated with a variety of activities on the land, including farming, construction runoff and streambank degradation.
Amendments to the Clean Water Act established the Section 319 Nonpoint Source Management Program to address the need for greater federal leadership to help focus state and local efforts. On Aug. 4, 1988, Delaware’s original Nonpoint Source Program was approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, making it one of the first programs in the nation to comply with Section 319 of the act. Delaware has been a leader in addressing this type of pollution since.
Some tools used in the state are regulatory; however, the vast majority are voluntary programs that have resulted in real water-quality improvements. One long-standing example is Delaware’s cover crop program — where farmers are provided incentives to plant crops over winter to slow erosion and take up nutrients — and, more recently, the Tree for Every Delawarean Initiative, which helps plant trees across the state to improve air and water quality.
Collectively, these efforts have resulted in significant water-quality improvements as identified by the department’s water-quality assessment program. This program monitors water quality at more than 140 water-quality stations throughout the state and routinely samples for a suite of 31 physical, chemical and biological parameters to ensure that Delaware’s waters meet water-quality standards for the protection of aquatic life and human health.
Over the past several decades, monitoring results show decreasing levels of pollutants in water bodies throughout the state. Examples of these successful efforts are the elimination of legacy industrial zinc sources from the Red Clay Creek; the elimination of impacts from point source pollution discharging into the inland bays, the most recent and significant being the Rehoboth Beach Wastewater Treatment Plant in 2018; the use of innovative technologies, like dispersing activated carbon pellets throughout the water body to dramatically reduce contaminant levels in sediment and fish tissue in Mirror Lake (Dover); and the declining levels of toxic contaminants in fish tissue in water bodies sampled throughout the state. The challenges are many, as new, emerging contaminants like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — known as PFAS — are discovered, and department staff will continue to assess and protect Delaware’s waters.
While many challenges have been resolved and numerous success stories can be shared, all attributed to the passage of the groundbreaking Clean Water Act legislation, the department will not cease in our commitment to protect and improve Delaware’s waters. As we face the challenges of climate change and uplifting overburdened communities, we will continue this journey with our trusted nonprofit partners, the General Assembly and all levels of government implementing the Clean Water Initiative for Underserved Communities and the Clean Water Trust, and investing millions of dollars to protect Delaware’s most precious resource.
