Demonstration Project (2024)
In late 2022, Delaware Canal 21 concluded its most critical project, which not only confirmed the feasibility of financially sustainable business model for the Delaware Canal, but also laid out a roadmap to achieve such a transformation.
In short, the project concluded that restoring the Delaware Canal to the fully watered condition would require $96M in construction costs, as well as $1M annually in ongoing maintenance beyond what the Pennsylvania State Park already spends.
To learn more about the Delaware Canal Authority Feasibility project follow the following links to either the summary or full final report.
Pennsylvania State Senator Steve Santarsiero is enthusiastic about the Authority Feasibility Study findings. With his support, Delaware Canal 21 was awarded a $75,000 grant via the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation & Natural Resources (DCNR) in 2023 to advance the agenda laid out in the study. With those funds in hand, Delaware Canal 21 has applied for three additional grants that will combine to fund a project to demonstrate how a new public/private partnership can significantly advance critical parts of the public consensus goal to re-establish a fully watered canal from Easton to Bristol.
With this project, we expect to achieve the following goals:
Demonstrate how the new entity recommended in the Authority Feasibility Study can partner with DCNR and attract both state and federal funds to Delaware Canal improvement projects.
Advance priority projects (from the Delaware Canal Workbook and Authority Feasibility Study) to the “shovel-ready” status to make them eligible for the funding made available by the Federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (a.k.a “Build Back Better”) before the program expires in 3 years.
Pursue a package of projects that address multiple hydraulic problems, enhancing the ability to sustain and regulate water flow in the entire 60 miles of the canal.
A Hydraulically Comprehensive Solution
The Delaware Canal’s most glaring problem in the past two years since Storm Ida has been the lack of water in central sections of the canal. But solving the problem of too little water upstream cannot be safely addressed without also handling the obstructions and wastegate inadequacies that contribute to flooding downstream – especially during storm surges.
Effective canal water management involves coupling unobstructed flow with the ability to regulate the volume of water in each pool - both water augmentation (via pumps) and water drainage (via waste-gates).
With such water management goals in mind, Delaware Canal 21 expects to leverage the grant funding to produce final construction-ready engineering plans to address following three essential areas:
Select the links above or the buttons below to learn more about each of the tasks involved with this project.