6:00 Reception with information tables

6:30 Program

At this Urban Sustainability Forum, hear an overview of the ecological history of the Delaware Estuary. Learn more about how human activity has threatened life in the Estuary, and find out about current efforts to enhance and rebuild its living resources. 

Five million people, including the residents of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Camden, New Jersey; and Wilmington, Delaware, rely on the Delaware Estuary for drinking water, industry, food production, and recreation. The Estuary includes all of the Delaware Bay and the tidal reaches of the Delaware River. The area contains the largest freshwater port in the world, the second-largest petrochemical port, and five of the largest East Coast refineries, with more than 42 million gallons of crude transported on the Delaware River daily.

Also a haven for a variety of plants and animals, the Estuary is home to more than 130 species of finfish, as well as clams, oysters, and crabs. Here you’ll find the largest population of spawning horseshoe crabs in the world. The area also hosts the second largest concentration of migrating shorebirds in the Western Hemisphere and is a habitat for 15 different species of waterfowl.

Featuring:

• Jonathan H. Sharp - College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, University of Delaware
• Gerald J. Kauffman - University of Delaware, Water Resources Agency
• Jennifer Adkins - Partnership for the Delaware Estuary
• Patrick Starr (Moderator) - Pennsylvania Environmental Council
• Maya van Rossum - Delaware Riverkeeper
• John Kraeuter - Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory
• David Velinsky - Patrick Center for Envt'l Research, the Academy of Natural Sciences