Keep Tap Water Safe

How Will Ambient Delaware River Water Quality Assessment Data Fare Under Trump’s Tiny Thumb?

‘What we’re seeing is environmental McCarthyism,’ said Patricia Kim, a graduate fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, of the incoming administration. She was commenting at a ‘guerrilla archiving event‘ at the University of Toronto in December, 2016, which was aimed at informing climate scientists how best to preserve climate data ahead of the Trump presidency.

There’s No Replacin’ A River Basin

The Delaware River Basin Commission reports regularly on water quality issues pertaining to the watershed. Published data sets are posted online here:  http://www.nj.gov/drbc/quality/datum/

Keeping the database is part of the DRBC’s responsibility, according to law, passed by congress in 1961. Nevertheless, now would be a great time to acknowledge this essential and invaluable public service, and to assure the DRBC of our support for the protection of their data along with our drinking water supply.

Write to the DRBC Executive Director and ask that the commission pledge to maintain data collection and stewardship, and that they will continue to publish their data online, readily available, and with full transparency.

Steve Tambini

Executive Director, The Delaware River Basin Commission

P.O. Box 7360

West Trenton, NJ  08628-0360

email: steve.tambini@drbc.nj.gov

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Here’s a sample letter to copy/paste and use:

Dear Mr. Tambini

Thank you for your efforts to protect the drinking water supply for 16.5 million people across four states. I hope that The Delaware River Basin Commission will continue to record and publish the science on the full range of water quality issues in The Delaware.

New pressures will surely be exerted on the DRBC with the incoming administration. I have read in the news that Donald Trump and his appointees deny climate change, and I’m particularly concerned about reports that climate science data and research may become suppressed or ‘lost.’   

I hope DRBC protects its information, too! I support the DRBC’s mission, and wish you the best in confronting the inevitable challenges of the future.

Sincerely,

Tags: delaware river, DRBC, Science, watershed

This entry was posted on January 17, 2017 at 12:34 pm and is filed under fresh water pollution, PA Drinking Water, Pennsylvania Watersheds, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.