Upper Delaware River

On the Willowemoc and the Little Beaverkill, two Upper Delaware tributaries, field crews are doing a soup-to-nuts assessment—electrofishing streams to calculate trout biomass, installing temperature monitors, sampling macroinvertebrates, and assessing fish passage at culverts. The data will help build a roadmap toward the larger goal: reverting to a native fishery on once legendary wild brook trout waters that are now heavily stocked with browns by the state.

On small tributaries across the watershed, we are removing failing culverts, shoring up stream banks with logs and root wads, reconnecting waters to their floodplains, and replanting streamside trees and vegetation. Restoring a functioning ecosystem makes for healthier, cleaner water for wild and native trout and for the rural communities. Funding from the federal Delaware Watershed Conservation Fund and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law help support this work.

Operation of the New York City water supply reservoirs on the West Branch and East Branch of the Delaware can wreak havoc on the fishery. Low water releases lead to high water temperatures and, on occasion, exposed streambeds as the city protects its water supply. Erratic releases raise and lower flows disruptively. Following years of research, advocacy and negotiation led by TU, The Nature Conservancy, FUDR, and local anglers, habitat protection measures were incorporated into the reservoir release regimes in 2007, but the push for higher and more consistent releases continues to this day.