The purity of the guardians (editorial)

The River Reporter
Thursday, September 1, 1988, p. 4.
EDITORIAL
Related article here

We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.

Jacques Cousteau, Oceanographer

The purity of the guardians

Cynthia Poten was appointed Delaware Riverkeeper by the Watershed Association of the Delaware River. In her columns -- published weekly in The River Reporter, as well as in other newspapers from Hancock to Wilmington -- she describes the river as a living entity, an archetype, a manifestation of the life-giving power which is this planet.

At an August 26th Citizens Advisory Council (CAC) meeting, she stated: "Down where we are, clear water is kind of like the Holy Grail."

Many people living in this area take a clean river for granted, never having lived in Trenton or below. Visit there sometime, see if you'd take your kids swimming.

According to Celtic legend, the grail was an ancient Druid chalice, which represented the "cauldron of rebirth" or powers of fertility. Legend has it that when Roman influence grasped for the British Isles, just before the former Empire's destruction, the holy chalice was taken "into the mists."

Funk & Wagnall's dictionary defines the grail as: "the cup used by Jesus at the Las Supper, preserved by Joseph of Aramathea... and brought to Britain, after which it disappeared because of the impurity of its guardians."

Whether she intended this comparison to be taken so far or not, Poten's simile was profound. The Delaware River Basin is the primary drinking source -- the potens vitae -- for over 20 million people -- one-tenth of the U.S. population.

According to Poten, she relies almost totally on citizen reports of pollution and other activities which degrade the river. She is not "politically connected" and owes her allegiance to no one, other than to balancing the demands of "civilization" and survival of the planetary organism.

At her meeting with the CAC, Poten heard reports of raw sewage dumping into the Delaware River at Callicoon Creek. As it is, this is among the few spots on the upper river where it is not safe to swim due to high fecal coliform levels. A friend of mine recently took her children swimming there, before the community pool opened this year, and her son developed a serious ear infection from the bacteria.

The CAC voted to send a letter to state officials urging hasty completion of a sewage treatment plant for the Town of Delaware.

It appears that specifications for this project have already been approved, clearing the way for the Town of Delaware to go to bid, according to a letter sent last week by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Town officials must now bid and award the project within one year, or risk losing the state funds for the project."

"This project had an initial completion date of September, 1980, and it was being planned in the late '70s," DEC program engineer Joseph Tuttle said on Monday. "Its been going on a long time, and this is a significant step forward."

Significant steps are important, but the process must move inexorably toward its conclusion. And even under the best timetable, it will be several years before actual construction is completed. Still, here is one problem that is being solved.

In the meantime, other pollution is also known about -- upriver at Equinunk Creek and downriver at Halfway Brook in Barryville. How well are these problems being solved? And even more problematic are the yet unknown sources of pollution which make our water impure.

Which brings us back to the Delaware Riverkeeper. Poten says that we all need to be "riverkeepers." If we choose to maintain our better way of life, it is incumbent upon us to remain vigilant in protecting the river.

Let us not awaken in the future to discover that our clear water has disappeared "into the mist" because of the impurity of the guardians.

-- Tom Rue, Contributing Editor