Delaware water supply still in good shape despite worsening drought

The worst drought in over 20 years is continuing to expand over Delaware, and current forecasts offer minimal relief. 

Gov. John Carney declared a statewide drought watch on Oct. 25 asking residents to voluntarily conserve water. The watch came a week after an indefinite outdoor burn ban from the Delaware Fire Marshal. 

The drought watch encourages state residents to limit watering their lawns and outdoor plants and to avoid using potable water to do so.

The governor’s declaration said the drought watch was triggered by low precipitation and stream flows in northern New Castle County.

Wilmington and Georgetown had the driest September on record, and October is lining up to have only a trace of rain in some locations at best. The state is on track to break a record for most consecutive days without rain, which is 34 days in both places.

Broadly, the state’s water supply, especially New Castle County’s reservoirs, is still in good shape. Newark is pulling from its reservoir as flow of the White Clay Creek gets lower. The reservoir off of Paper Mill Road was built after the drought of 2002, the worst drought on record in northern Delaware.

A drought watch is the first step in the drought operation plan, which was developed in the 2000s with the four states in the Delaware River Basin, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, to coordinate drought response. New Jersey is also in a drought watch. 

A drought warning would be the next step, and a drought emergency is when residents could face mandatory water conservation. That would take a much longer period of no rain to get to, said Gerald Kauffman, director of the Water Resources Center at the University of Delaware. The last drought emergency was in 2002. 

“There’s a lot of backup water supply,” Kauffman said.

Wilmington’s water supply comes from the Brandywine, which flows from Pennsylvania into the Christina River, which flows to the Delaware River. Its levels are good, according to Kauffman, but they are actively monitoring them. If the water level goes down, the city can always pull from Hoopes Reservoir, a New Deal-era reservoir that can supply the city in the event of severe drought. 

Kauffman said that reality is “off a ways,” however. 

Veolia, which supplies New Castle County’s water, said the low precipitation levels have not affected its operations or ability to deliver water to its customers.

Artesian, which also supplies water to much of the unincorporated areas of the county, said it does not anticipate impacts on customers. 

Downstate, the water supply is reliant on groundwater wells, which are at good levels. 

Dover relies on water from wells near Route 9. 

Lewes and Rehoboth Beach also rely on wells, some of which are over 100 feet deep. While these wells are in a good spot right now, they will not be recharged without rain. 

Private individual wells in the less dense parts of Delaware would be the first to discover groundwater shortages because they are not as deep, according to Kauffman. 

However, Kauffman has broader concerns about this drought. Not having even 0.01 inches of rain in a single month is what you would expect in Phoenix, not Delaware or anywhere in the Northeast. He said legendary droughts are set up by dry falls, and he warns this one could set up a dry spring and then summer next year. A summer with a drought this severe would hurt Delaware’s most valuable industry, agriculture. 

“The only saving grace right now is that we’re in we’re late in the growing season in October,” he said. “If this were June, it would be a much more concerning situation.”

In the near term, Kauffman said he is concerned about the salt line between the Delaware Bay and Delaware River moving northward with freshwater flow ground to a halt.  

The line between salt and freshwater in the Delaware is currently past the Commodore Barry Bridge between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. That salt water then creeps into the Christina River in Wilmington and could creep into the White Clay Creek and Red Clay Creek. 

Veolia actively measures the salt contents in the White Clay Creek in an area near the Christina Marsh, which is bisected by I-95 near Churchman’s Crossing. Fortunately, Veolia said the salt levels are measuring as normal at the plant in Stanton.

While it is difficult to know whether the drought is the direct result of climate change, Kauffman said pattern stagnation is accentuated by climate change. A dry high-pressure system has been camped above the Northeast for a while now, preventing any notable weathermakers to come into the area.

For now, Kauffman said the drought response is operating normally.

“These measures that you’re seeing, chloride monitoring, drawing from Newark Reservoir, Veolia, working with Wilmington, in case they need the Hoopes Reservoir, this is all in the drought operating plan just waiting to be utilized at this point,” he said. “So the conclusion is the drought operating plan is working as designed.”  

(This story was updated to meet our standards and to add a graphic.)