Watershed

New Jersey environmental groups' celebration over new protections for water quality has turned to outrage as the Legislature considers a bill to delay new rules until 2012 or beyond. The state was working to put in place a comprehensive plan to protect water quality and regulate development in sensitive areas of watersheds - 15 years after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered it to do so. But a proposal introduced this month in the Legislature, one that environmental groups say plays to developers, could postpone that plan by at least two more years and possibly thwart it altogether.

LITITZ, Pa. - More than a decade ago, tiny Lititz Run in Lancaster County was a ribbon of fetid water that was too hot, too slow, and too poisoned by agricultural runoff to support trout for more than a few weeks. Then the community embraced its revival. Neighbors re-created wetlands. Farmers changed time-honored ways. Today Lititz Run is a rarity among waterways: a year-round trout stream that has won national accolades and been cited as a model. But as a tributary in the Susquehanna River watershed, Lititz Run still isn't clean enough, and it adds to the pollution that the Susquehanna sends downstream to the nutrient-choked Chesapeake Bay. Pennsylvania bears a huge responsibility for the despoiling of the bay. The Susquehanna, which drains half the state, pumps in 40 percent of the bay's nitrogen, largely from agriculture, and a gusher of its two other major pollutants - natural sediment and phosphorus from fertilizers and detergents - abetting the decline of the Chesapeake's celebrated fishing industry.

STORY BY SANDY BAUERS PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHARON GEKOSKI-KIMMEL LITITZ, Pa. - More than a decade ago, tiny Lititz Run in Lancaster County was a ribbon of fetid water that was too hot, too slow, and too poisoned by agricultural runoff to support trout for more than a few weeks. Then the community embraced its revival. Neighbors re-created wetlands. Farmers changed time-honored ways. Today Lititz Run is a rarity among waterways: a year-round trout stream that has won national accolades and been cited as a model.

"The water is 44 degrees, it's not getting any warmer, but the air temp is about 40, so the water should feel balmy. You probably won't want to come out," said Damon Sinclair, tongue placed firmly in cheek, over the loudspeakers at Brandywine Picnic Park on Saturday. Sinclair, the emcee of the Brandywine Valley Association's (BVA) inaugural "Make a Splash Polar Plunge" benefit, gave the 108 plungers a few last words Saturday morning before they charged down the sandy hill and into the chilly Brandywine Creek.

On Saturday, dozens of (slightly nutty) friends of the Brandywine Valley Association will take a major plunge as they raise money to help protect the 330-square-mile watershed in Pennsylvania and Delaware. They will jump into a 50-foot-wide section of the frigid Brandywine Creek in the "Make a Splash Polar Plunge," bringing a version of the well-known polar bear clubs to Chester County. "It was my crazy idea," said Jim Jordan, managing director of the nonprofit conservation group that guards the watershed.

Between 4,000 and 5,000 spectators are expected to arrive in Unionville next Sunday for the 73d annual Pennsylvania Hunt Cup. Proceeds from the Timber Steeplechase race will benefit five local nonprofits, including the Stroud Water Research Center, Brandywine Conservancy, Brandywine Valley Association, Cheshire Land Trust and Natural Lands Trust. "We are extremely enthusiastic about preserving open space and the watershed," said Kathee Rengert, executive director of the Hunt Cup. The Unionville track is on land protected by conservation easements.

SIX YEARS ago, the Daily News published a series of editorials bemoaning the state of the city's park system. We weren't the first, but the "Acres of Neglect" series illustrated how years of financial and management neglect of the city's glorious park system had taken their toll. At that time, we called for many changes, the most important being the reform of the park's governing body. Members of the Fairmount Park Commission, established in 1857, were appointed in secret by the Board of Judges, and too often, appointees did nothing to further the park's agenda in City Hall or the city's neighborhoods.

The Green Woods Charter School in Upper Roxborough is scheduled to receive a Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence today. The charter school, on the grounds of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, was recognized for a year-long watershed study conducted by fourth graders. Kathleen McGinty, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, is scheduled to present the award. Green Woods was the only school among 12 organizations that won a Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence in 2007.

Stephanie Calinan remembers the first time she picked up a copy of Harry Potter. "I was in sixth or seventh grade, around 10 or 11," recalls the 17-year-old from Blenheim, Camden County. "I was about Harry's age, which made it really interesting because I would be doing the same stuff that Harry would be doing. " Stuff, that is, that's standard fare for 10- and 11-year-olds. Learning about yourself, your friends and the opposite sex, exploring school and sports, having fun - basically, growing up. "You can relate to the books, especially as a teenager," she says.

After staunchly defending the adequacy of its floodplain mapping, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has changed course - endorsing the far more rigorous science used by a team of Philadelphia researchers to chart one of the region's most perilous flood zones. FEMA officials said Friday that Temple University's work in the Pennypack Creek watershed was unsurpassed in detail, and could become the model for assessing flood risk in high-growth areas nationwide. Just a few months ago, FEMA cited that precision as its reason for refusing to add Temple's maps to the national archive, saying they exceeded the agency's standards.