The coalition's member groups include the Environmental Defense Fund, based in New York City; the Environmental Policy Institute, Washington, D.C.; the National Water Well Association, Dublin, Ohio; the Natural Resources Defense Council, New York, and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Del-AWARE Unlimited Inc., the Bucks County group that since 1980 has coordinated efforts to stop the pump, is a coalition member. Fred Duke, Del- AWARE executive director, said his organization was stepping back from the lead role in the effort to stop construction of the project.
The project would draw water from the Delaware River at Point Pleasant and funnel it, through pipelines and existing streams, to two water authorities in Montgomery County and to Philadelphia Electric Co.'s Limerick nuclear power plant.
The coalition is the idea of Cynthia Poten, who works for another coalition member, the American Littoral Society.
Poten said she began in January to contact groups such as the Sierra Club, which had expressed opposition to the pump.
Pennsylvania Sierra Club chairman Wyona Coleman said her group had joined the coalition because "we would like to see some other alternatives considered. We definitely think the river is overtaxed and that essentially the project as it's now contemplated would injure the two streams which are designated to carry the water. We just think the whole project is extremely ill-considered."
