Deadline looms for new rules to improve Delaware River water quality. Will the EPA follow through?

This coming Monday, June 30, marks a significant deadline in the years-long fight over improving the water quality of a 38-mile stretch of the Delaware River between Philadelphia, Pa., and Wilmington, Del., which has been chronically polluted.

According to a notice published in the Federal Register in January, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has until Monday to issue new rules aimed at improving the levels of dissolved oxygen in that section of the waterway.

Read our complete coverage of this fight here.

It has been a contentious battle that has pitted environmentalists (who have argued for water quality improvements to protect fish, especially the endangered Atlantic sturgeon), against the Delaware River Basin Commission (which engaged in painstaking and what critics have said was too-slow scientific research) and industrial and municipal users of the river (who complain any improvements to meet the new rules will require upgrades that will cost them, and public ratepayers, millions of dollars).

With so much at stake and with Monday’s deadline looming, what will the EPA do?

• Will it issue more stringent regulations?
• Will it delay the rule-making?
• Or, under a presidential administration that is spearheading rollbacks of environmental rules and cutting EPA staff, will it do nothing at all, or possibly issue rules that environmentalists will jeer and industrial users will cheer?

No one seems to know.

Totally new political climate

Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper who led the fight for the improved water quality rules, said that her organization, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, had not seen any proposed standards yet.

“We are anticipating a proposal, like you, by end of month or some other agreed-upon timeline,” she wrote in an email. “Our goal remains protective standards as soon as possible.”

In March, she had said: “At this point we are awaiting confirmation that the consent decree is approved by the judge. If it is, then all should be on track in terms of timing. If it is not, then I’m not sure. But the substance is not at all assured.”

The EPA, for its part, would not offer an update, citing a policy against commenting on pending or current litigation. And a review of the federal court docket offered no updates or clues that the rules were coming.

In April, the EPA did say it would finalize revised water quality standards for the section of the river that has suffered from a so-called oxygen sag, or a depletion of dissolved oxygen, which is vital for the propagation of fish, particularly the Atlantic sturgeon.

“EPA’s forthcoming final rule will prioritize clean water to support aquatic life and benefit those living, working and recreating in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” the agency said at the time. But the EPA also said that it “intends to comply with all applicable and relevant Executive Orders when issuing this rule.”

How we got here

The problem is complicated: The dissolved oxygen in the contested part of the river is diminished by discharges from wastewater treatment plants, like those in Philadelphia, Camden, Trenton and Wilmington, among others.

Those plants follow all the rules but their wastewater (and those rules) don’t address nitrogen in that water. Nitrogen can be processed by “good bugs” in the river, except if there’s too much nitrogen, they can’t. That excess nitrogen absorbs oxygen, hence the dissolved oxygen “sag” in some parts of the river.

In April 2022, the Delaware Riverkeeper and a group of nonprofits were frustrated with the slow pace of the DRBC’s work. The groups filed a petition with the EPA, seeking to bypass the DRBC and to compel the EPA to issue revised water-quality standards. 

A month later, the DRBC completed its scientific and engineering work and in December 2022, the EPA agreed with the Riverkeeper, and took over the process.

In September 2023, the DRBC formally ceded action to the EPA. In December 2023, the EPA publicized its proposed rules for public comment. And in October 2024, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network sued the EPA, accusing it of foot-dragging in finalizing its regulations.

The capstone of this protracted battle came when the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and the EPA reached an agreement requiring the EPA to implement the new rules by Monday.

Accelerated effort could backfire

One of the strange twists in what has already been a twisty fight is that, had the Riverkeeper allowed the DRBC to stick to its original timeline, the commission was expected to have issued its new rules by March 2025.

Instead, by forcing the DRBC’s hand and petitioning the EPA to take action and then suing the EPA, the Riverkeeper Network not only delayed the rules by three months but more significantly, unwittingly introduced a major wrinkle: a hugely changed presidential administration that is likely to be hostile to its goals.