Damming the Delaware

First published in 1987 and named a Choice Outstanding Academic Book the following year, Damming the Delaware is the definitive study of two hundred years of water management history along the Delaware River. The history of the Tocks Island Dam Project is traced from an early 1783 anti-dam treaty, through the highly emotional environmental controversy in the 1970s, to the historic Good Faith agreement of the 1980s. The story involves the water politics of four states, two major U.S. cities, and the federal government, plus the influence of the environmental movement over major public works projects.

In this second edition, the author updates the Tocks Island/Delaware River story to 2005. A major shift in the underlying philosophies of Delaware River management during the intervening years is described along with various successes and failures in water management. A Foreword to the second edition is written by Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper and Executive Director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization that has both successfully fought dam projects and removed existing dams.

“The author . . . has succeeded in his desire to maintain an unbiased approach, and the book is written so well that it is difficult to fault it.”—Jane Mork Gibson (on the first edition), Public Historian

Richard C. Albert is Restoration Director/Scientist with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. He previously worked for the Delaware River Basin Commission and other agencies. His numerous publications include Along the Delaware River (2002).

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface and Acknowledgments

Delaware River Basin Facts

Chronology: Evolution of a Delaware River Dam

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

1. Introduction

2. Enter Man

3. A Water Supply for Millions

4. Birth of a Main-Stem Dam Project

5. The Sage is Reset

6. The Pieces Are Put Together

7. In All Its Glory

8. A Central Park for Megalopolis

9. Sunfish Pond: Prelude to Controversy

10. Tocks Island Logjam

11. Pox on Tocks

12. Troubles in the Minisink

13. Decisions Are Made

14. A Matter of Good Faith

Epilogue

Notes

Sources

Index

History

           Pennsylvania & Mid-Atlantic

           U.S.

Pennsylvania & the Mid-Atlantic

           History