West Penn Township officials believe all wells for commercial extracted water within the Delaware River Basin Commission should cease until the drought is over.

Township supervisors on a 2-0 vote Tuesday morning agreed to send a letter of correspondence to the Delaware River Basin Commission from the township to that effect. Supervisor Jim Akins was absent.

“We’re hoping other communities jump on board and do a similar thing,” Prudenti said.

Prudenti read correspondence the township received Nov. 6 from the Delaware River Basin Commission which has called for a drought hearing for the Delaware River Basin, urging efficient water use and public cooperation with state-issued alerts.

Prudenti said it was announced recently that DRBC Executive Director Steve Tambini had announced a special hearing to be held Tuesday for the commission to accept public input on the persistent dry conditions throughout the Delaware River Basin and how to address them.

The purpose of the hearing, which was to be held virtually, was to seek input from interested parties as the commission considers declaring a “water supply emergency” in the event conditions worsen.

“Many areas in the Delaware River Basin continue to experience significantly below-normal precipitation with resulting effects on streamflows, groundwater levels and reservoir storage,” Tambini said. “These conditions have already prompted the states of New Jersey, New York, Delaware and Pennsylvania to declare drought watches or warnings in most or all of the counties that lie within the Basin.”

Beginning in October, low flows in the Delaware River prompted the DRBC to direct releases of stored water from a federal reservoir, Beltzville, Carbon County, to meet the minimum flow objective for the river at Trenton, New Jersey.

“As of 8 a.m. approximately 1.12 billion gallons of water has been released from Beltzville Reservoir to meet the Trenton Flow Objective,” said Amy Shallcross, DRBC’s Water Resource Operations Manager. It was noted that an additional source of water in the lower basin that’s available for use to meet the Trenton Flow Objective is Blue Marsh Reservoir in Berks County.

The purpose of the Trenton Flow Objective is to control the “salt front” in the tidal Delaware River. Freshwater is needed to keep salty or brackish water from advancing up the Delaware Bay during low-flow conditions and reaching drinking water intakes for Philadelphia and New Jersey communities, and industrial intakes along the river.

“The salt front is currently 17 river miles upstream from its normal location for this time of year despite the reservoir releases,” Shallcross said. “If more water is needed to address salt front management, we expect continued decreases in reservoir storage and additional drought risks.”

Unless precipitation trends change in the near term, initial drought management actions are reductions in flow objectives for the main stem Delaware River and out-of-basin diversions to conserve reservoir storage. In a drought emergency, the drought plan gives the DRBC the authority to call for releases from additional reservoirs to increase river flow.

The basinwide drought management plan is based on the amount of combined storage in the three New York City reservoirs, the largest in the Delaware River Basin. As of 8 a.m. the combined storage in NYC’s Delaware River Basin reservoirs was currently 38 billion gallons above the level that initiates a drought watch. The low storage is in part due to NYC’s Delaware Aqueduct Repair Project. New York City is not currently diverting water from the Delaware River Basin reservoirs while the repair is being made.

The public is encouraged to visit the NYC Department of Environmental Protection website for updates on the Delaware Aqueduct Repair Project.

The DRBC is also urging all water users to voluntarily curb water use in Basin communities where drought watches and warnings have been issued; maximize water efficiency and cooperation with all state-issued alerts.

“Over 14 million people rely on our shared waters, and while we may believe this resource is limitless the fact is that we never know when the next long-term drought might begin,” Tambini added. “Collectively we can work toward improving water efficiency every day, not only when we experience dry conditions.”

The DRBC is a federal-interstate government agency responsible for managing the water resources within the 13,539-square-mile Delaware River Basin without regard to political boundaries. The five commission members are the governors of the basin states (Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania) and the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ North Atlantic Division, who represents the federal government.