Delaware
There can only be one: Delaware River among three Pennsylvania waterways up for state award
Three rivers. One award.
Voting is now open for Pennsylvania River of the Year.
The Delaware River, which flows through the Poconos in Northeast Pennsylvania, is up against Perkiomen Creek, a tributary of the Schuylkill River, located northwest of Philadelphia; and the Youghiogheny River in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
“We’re thrilled to be nominated for 2025 designation, and we encourage the public to go vote … for the Delaware River so we can really help bring more attention to the outstanding resource that we have in our backyard,” said Mark Zakutansky, a member of the Delaware River Sojourn’s Steering committee.
The committee put the river in the running for the award. It’s made up of organizations, nonprofits, government, individual volunteers and businesses all along the Delaware River.
The sojourn celebrates its 30th year in 2025. The committee hoped for the nomination to help promote the annual paddling and camping trip down the 330-mile river.
“This is not just a celebration of the river, but, also, of all the people that have really dedicated their work lives and personal lives to make it better,” Delaware River Basin Commission spokesperson Kate Schmidt said.
The seven-day sojourn will be held the third week of June, and the event will proceed with or without the designation.
“We ultimately feel that the best way to kind of discover something is to do it,” said Schmidt. “So the best way to discover the Delaware River is to get on it and paddle.”
A quick history
Last year the Allegheny River won the award. In 2023, it was the North Branch of the Susquehanna. The Delaware has won before, in 2011 and 2002; just the Upper Delaware won in 1995.
Its east and west branches meet in Hancock, New York. The river forms an interstate boundary its entire length but the largest part of the watershed is in Pennsylvania. The river ends where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.
Schmidt says 14.2 million people — almost 4% of the entire population of the United States — rely on the river’s basin.
“For drinking, industry, agriculture, you know pretty much for their daily needs,” she said.
The indigenous Lenape people named the river Lenapewihittuck. They lived in the Delaware Valley, along tributaries of the river. Dutch settlers discovered the waterway in the 1600s and called it the South River.
The English then named the river after Sir Thomas West, the third Lord de la Warr. The Lenape became known as the Delawares.
Winner will receive $10K grant
Pennsylvania Organization for Watersheds and Rivers (POWR) facilitates the River of the Year program with funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).
The winning river’s nominating organization will receive a $10,000 DCNR grant to fund year-long celebrations, including paddling events and community activities
Voting ends Jan. 24. To cast a vote, visit https://pawatersheds.org/about-river-of-the-year/vote-roy/
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Thomas Jefferson University is opening a regional campus of its Sidney Kimmel Medical College in Delaware, an effort that will result in the state’s first medical school.
Jefferson beat out three other bidders to establish the four-year program in partnership with the state. The other bidders were the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, the consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Ponce Health Sciences University in Puerto Rico, Spotlight Delaware reported.
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The inaugural class of 40 medical students will begin instruction in July 2028. Initially, the campus will be based at the University of Delaware in Newark, with Jefferson faculty providing instruction. A permanent home for the campus is still being finalized, the Inquirer reported.
The medical students will receive 18 months of preclinical training on campus before receiving clinical training from healthcare providers in Delaware’s southern counties, where the state’s physician shortage is most deeply felt. That shortage is compounded by an aging population, Delaware officials said.
“Jefferson is committed to being part of the solution to Delaware’s physician shortage,” Jefferson CEO Dr. Joseph Cacchione said in a statement. “We are proud to help build a future where every Delawarean has access to the care they deserve. Jefferson is all in.”
The school’s creation is being supported by $157.4 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Delaware is one of three states without a Doctor of Medicine or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program. Since the late 1960s, Jefferson and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine have reserved seats for Delaware students.
“Sidney Kimmel Medical College has trained generations of physicians for more than 200 years, more than any other medical college in the country,” Said Ibrahim, dean of Sidney Kimmel Medical College, said in a statement. “It is a privilege to bring our mission to Delaware’s patients and communities.”
Jefferson has announced several expansions recently. The university is establishing a full-time doctor of nursing practice-nurse anesthesia program and several online graduate programs at the Lehigh Valley Health Network Center for Healthcare Education in Lehigh County. It also is opening a satellite respiratory therapy lab at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown.
Delaware officials said medical students will start their classroom instruction at UD and then do their clinical training at offices and health care systems in Kent and Sussex counties, where the shortage of doctors is most acute.
However, ChristianaCare, which has its own partnership with Jefferson, is not participating. The state’s largest health care system was part of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine’s unsuccessful bid to operate the school. In a joint statement from ChristianaCare and PCOM, the two organizations expressed disappointment with not being part of the consortium of higher education institutions and healthcare organizations.
“The path forward raises genuine questions about whether the school’s goals can be fully realized without ChristianaCare’s meaningful participation in its clinical training mission,” it said. “The success of any four-year medical program depends not just on an academic institution, but on a true and committed partnership with its clinical partners — one built on shared mission, mutual investment and trust developed over time.”
Students in the first class can get their tuition subsidized, covering all of their education costs, in exchange for an agreement to work in rural Delaware for five years.
Running the medical school is expected to cost Jefferson $78 million over the next five years. The money is from a federal rural health grant through the Rural Health Transformation Program, which congressional Republicans created in the so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.”
The program will give $50 billion to every state over five years, though exactly the total each will eventually receive is unclear. Half of the money is to be distributed equally to states and the other half is awarded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services based on a variety of factors.
The state applied for $1 billion late last year to improve health care in Kent and Sussex counties. The Trump administration has so far allocated Delaware $157 million. Delaware is expected to receive at least $500 million over the life of the fund.
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