The Express-Times (Easton, Pa.)

EDITORIALS

DEP must enforce 300-foot buffer zones around creeks

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Delaware River flooding

The effort to minimize recurring flooding on the Delaware River and its tributaries is something of a watershed process in itself, branching off in several directions. The Delaware River Basin Commission is embarking on a comprehensive study. Landowners are suing New York City over management of upstream reservoirs during three recent floods on the Delaware. The DRBC, four states and the city are working toward on formalizing rules to draw down the reservoirs when necessary. And on a personal level, people are dealing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and insurance companies to decide what to do -- rebuild, repair, elevate or abandon streamside properties.

This process will work if the money and effort gravitates toward a common goal -- determining what government can do against natural forces to curb property loss, and what projects, regulations and practices simply continue to invite disaster.

There is one thing the state Department of Environment Protection can do -- enforce new rules that mandate 300-foot buffer zones along creeks and small rivers.

Last week environmental advocates contended that the state is allowing builders to slip through the rules -- by treating farmland targeted for development as if it qualifies for narrower stream buffers, instead of the 300-foot standard.

The wider zones aren't just designed to protect creeks from flooding. They guard against stormwater that contributes to larger flooding on the Delaware and against the degradation of water quality caused not just by farm runoff, but suburban runoff -- water blocked by impervious surfaces and polluted by road salt, dog feces and everything else that shows up when fields become subdivisions.

DEP officials say they intend to enforce the tougher rule. Last week the state Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a builders lobby over the 300-foot rule. That's welcome news, but New Jersey and Pennsylvania need to get tough on stormwater and development controls as they relate to flooding. As we've seen three times now since September 2004, it all adds up, and it has to go somewhere.