Maya K. van Rossum is the Delaware Riverkeeper, leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and founder of Green Amendments for the Generations.
The Delaware River once supported the largest population of Atlantic sturgeon in North America.
Today, its population has plummeted. Continued overharvesting of sturgeon for caviar decimated the population over a century ago. That travesty has been compounded by present-day government failure to take meaningful action to protect and restore the Atlantic sturgeon of the Delaware River.
Unknown to many, the Delaware River is home to a genetically unique population of Atlantic sturgeon. Historically, the adult female population alone was estimated to have been 180,000, yet today, fewer than 250 males and females return to the river each year to spawn. That is no typo. Only 250!
If meaningful actions are not taken right now, the Delaware River Atlantic sturgeon could become extinct within our lifetime. What a horrifying thought — that it will be on our watch, in our generation, that this genetically unique population will disappear forever.
What’s happening to cause such harm?
The upper reaches of the Delaware River estuary are where the sturgeon spawn, and where baby sturgeon find the critical and delicate habitat imperative for launching their lives. Because of ongoing pollution and an outdated 50-year-old legal standard, there is not enough oxygen in the river to properly support their propagation and growth.
While the science says 6.3 milligrams/liter of dissolved oxygen in the water is what the sturgeon need, the Delaware River Basin Commission has maintained an antiquated regulatory requirement of only 3.5 mg/l. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network and partner organizations have been calling on the commission and the Environmental Protection Agency to put in place legal mandates that will give the sturgeon the oxygen they need to survive and thrive. But so far, these agencies have failed to take this needed action.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, port facilities and liquefied natural gas operations have been dredging the river deeper and deeper, impacting habitat and bringing larger and larger ships up the river. The ships are so large, they leave the sturgeon nowhere to go. As a result, the sturgeon get sliced apart by ship propellers or hit by ships with such force that they die.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has cherry-picked the science when reviewing scientific literature in order to inform the decision to list the Delaware River population as endangered, to identify critical habitat essential for sturgeon protection and/or to determine whether port, liquefied natural gas, dredging or other operations should be allowed to proceed. This has resulted in project approvals and government decisions that have failed to provide our Atlantic sturgeon population’s needed protection.
It is not just about the sturgeon; it is about people, too. The natural gas exports, pollution, proposed fracking of wastewater, dredging and human-induced climate crisis that are harming the sturgeon are harming people, too.
And there is a moral imperative at play, too. It is fundamentally wrong and immoral for people to knowingly take actions — repeatedly and continuously over time — that decimate another species over which we are not entitled to exercise such dominion.
The question is no longer what can be done but, rather, what needs to be done.
It’s time for government to act and for people to demand action. Government must mandate changed shipping patterns in order to share the river and leave space for the sturgeon where they are safe from ship strikes and the sharp slice of a propeller.
It’s time for the Environmental Protection Agency to recognize that the Delaware River Basin Commission on its own is not going to act to raise oxygen standards and reduce pollution inputs, so EPA must use its own Clean Water Act authority to do so immediately.
It’s time for the National Marine Fisheries Service to recognize that our Delaware River population is genetically unique and needs greater protection.
It’s time for the Army Corps and the fisheries service to stop being yes men for every project proposed — liquefied natural gas, dredging, port, pollution discharge and/or in-river development.
It’s time for the basin commission and the watershed states to permanently ban any proposal to import toxic frack wastewater. It’s time that all of government end our reliance upon, and the growth of, the fossil fuel industry and instead to immediately advance clean and renewable energy, so we stop contributing to the growing climate crisis that also has devastating consequences for the sturgeon.
What can you do?
Demand government protect our sturgeon. Go to dinointhedelaware.org to sign the petition, join our Nov. 16 rally and stay engaged to help stand for the Delaware River Atlantic sturgeon. They need you!
