Sec. 2. Findings
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/bill/114/s/921/is/section-2A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress finds that— the Delaware River Basin is a national treasure of great cultural, environmental, ecological, and economic importance; the Basin contains over 12,500 square miles of land in the States of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, including nearly 800 square miles of bay and more than 2,000 tributary rivers and streams; the Basin is home to more than 8,000,000 people who depend on the Delaware River and the Delaware Bay as an economic engine, a place of recreation, and a vital habitat for fish and wildlife; the Basin provides clean drinking water to more than 15,000,000 people, including New York City, which relies on the Basin for approximately half of the drinking water supply of the city, and Philadelphia, whose most significant threat to the drinking water supply of the city is loss of forests and other natural cover in the Upper Basin, according to a study conducted by the Philadelphia Water Department; the Basin contributes $25,000,000,000 annually in economic activity, provides $21,000,000,000 in ecosystem goods and services per year, and is directly or indirectly responsible for 600,000 jobs with $10,000,000,000 in annual wages; almost 180 species of fish and wildlife are considered special status species in the Basin due to habitat loss and degradation, particularly sturgeon, eastern oyster, horseshoe crabs, and red knots, which have been identified as unique species in need of habitat improvement; the Basin provides habitat for over 200 resident and migrant fish species, includes significant recreational fisheries, and is an important source of eastern oyster, blue crab, and the largest population of the American horseshoe crab; the annual dockside value of commercial eastern oyster fishery landings for the Delaware Estuary is nearly $4,000,000, making it the fourth most lucrative fishery in the Delaware River Basin watershed, and proven management strategies are available to increase oyster habitat, abundance, and harvest; the Delaware Bay has the second largest concentration of shorebirds in North America and is designated as one of the 4 most important shorebird migration sites in the world; the Basin, 50 percent of which is forested, also has over 700,000 acres of wetland, more than 126,000 acres of which are recognized as internationally important, resulting in a landscape that provides essential ecosystem services, including recreation, commercial, and water quality benefits; much of the remaining exemplary natural landscape in the Basin is vulnerable to further degradation, as the Basin gains approximately 10 square miles of developed land annually, and with new development, urban watersheds are increasingly covered by impervious surfaces, amplifying the quantity of polluted runoff into rivers and streams; the Delaware River is the longest undammed river east of the Mississippi; a critical component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System in the Northeast, with more than 400 miles designated; home to one of the most heavily visited National Park units in the United States, the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area; and the location of 6 National Wildlife Refuges; the Delaware River supports an internationally renowned cold water fishery in more than 80 miles of its northern headwaters that attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year and generates over $21,000,000 in annual revenue through tourism and recreational activities; management of water volume in the Basin is critical to flood mitigation and habitat for fish and wildlife, and following 3 major floods along the Delaware River since 2004, the Governors of the States of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania have called for natural flood damage reduction measures to combat the problem, including restoring the function of riparian corridors; the Delaware River Port Complex (including docking facilities in the States of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) is one of the largest freshwater ports in the world, the Port of Philadelphia handles the largest volume of international tonnage and 70 percent of the oil shipped to the East Coast, and the Port of Wilmington, a full-service deepwater port and marine terminal supporting more than 12,000 jobs, is the busiest terminal on the Delaware River, handling more than 400 vessels per year with an annual import/export cargo tonnage of more than 4,000,000 tons; the Delaware Estuary, where freshwater from the Delaware River mixes with saltwater from the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the largest and most complex of the 28 estuaries in the National Estuary Program, and the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary works to improve the environmental health of the Delaware Estuary; the Delaware River Basin Commission is a Federal-interstate compact government agency charged with overseeing a unified approach to managing the river system and implementing important water resources management projects and activities throughout the Basin that are in the national interest; restoration activities in the Basin are supported through several Federal and State agency programs, and funding for those important programs should continue and complement the establishment of the Delaware River Basin Restoration Program, which is intended to build on and help coordinate restoration and protection funding mechanisms at the Federal, State, regional, and local levels; and the existing and ongoing voluntary conservation efforts in the Delaware River Basin necessitate improved efficiency and cost effectiveness, as well as increased private-sector investments and coordination of Federal and non-Federal resources.