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Published on November 29, 2024
Delaware River's Drinking Water for Philadelphia and Beyond at Risk as Salt Front AdvancesSource: Wikipedia/Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Delaware River, a crucial source of drinking water for Philadelphia and millions throughout New Jersey and New York, faces a rising threat as a salt front pushes further upstream due to persistent drought conditions paired with sea level rise. Authorities are deploying releases from reservoirs to counteract the saline intrusion, as reported by ABC7NY.

Desalination remains a less than ideal solution, with high energy demands and challenging waste disposal questions, though the pressure to consider such alternatives grows as the salt line encroaches upon water intakes only 18 miles away from them, it won't be an easy or cheap fix—Amy Shallcross, the water resource operations manager at the Delaware River Basin Commission, emphasized the urgency in an interview obtained by ABC7NY.

Monitoring efforts are focused near Trenton, the furthest upstream tide-affected point, with officials maintaining a specific river flow to keep the salt at bay. This task aligns with managing roughly the volume of two Olympic-sized swimming pools every minute, a balance that is critical but delicate, to ensure the salty tide does not compromise the fresh water supply for the region.

The phenomenon of the salt front is not unique to the Delaware, with the Mississippi River experiencing similar challenges, adjusting its infrastructure to face what's been coined as a "salt wedge" a problem also exacerbated by human interventions like riverbed dredging for navigation, all this is underscored by the precariousness of the freshwater systems we rely on, as noted by ABC News in their coverage of the issue.

With rainfall inadequate to rectify the current predicament, the Basin Commission already strategizes over future countermeasures and the broader implications of climate change, Shallcross disclosed in an interview with ABC News, indicating that conservation measures may need to stiffen as water resources are examined through a new lens of adequacy rather than abundance.