Event

The William Penn Foundation has set a goal for the Delaware River Basin of “ensuring sufficient clean water through healthy watersheds”.  To accomplish this, they have developed a program with science as the backbone, on-the-ground restoration and preservation in targeted watersheds as the actions, and working from the bottom-up with 50+ “grass-top” organizations as the doers. They have kick-started the Delaware River Watershed Initiative (DRWI) with a total of $35 million for the on-the-ground projects allocated over three years.

It is a large, complex program with many moving parts and players. As Andy Johnson of the Foundation states “We are flying the plane while we are still building it”.  Carol Collier will discuss critical issues in the Delaware Basin, provide details on the DRWI and the Academy of Natural Sciences’ roles including establishing the scientific basis of the Initiative, the substantive monitoring and assessment program to track improvements, and development of a Basin-wide Research Agenda. The success of the Initiative relies on the careful selection of projects, implementation follow through, financial leverage, local support, extensive communication and collaboration, analysis of success and sharing lessons learned.