Damming the Delaware
The Rise and Fall of Tocks Island Dam
224 pages | 12 illustrations | 6 x 9 | 1987
Cloth edition is not available
Paperback edition is not available in the U.S.
“The author . . . has succeeded in his desire to maintain an unbiased approach, and the book is written so well that it is difficult to fault it.” —Jane Mork Gibson (on the first edition), The Public Historian
First published in 1987 and named a Choice Outstanding Academic Book the following year, Damming the Delaware is the definitive study of two hundred years of water management history along the Delaware River. The history of the TocksIsland Dam Project is traced from an early 1783 anti-dam treaty, throughthe highly emotional environmental controversy in the 1970s, to the historicGood Faith agreement of the 1980s. The story involves the water politicsof four states, two major U.S. cities, and the federal government, plus the influence of the environmental movement over major public works projects.
In this second edition, the author updates the Tocks Island/Delaware River storyto 2005. A major shift in the underlying philosophies of Delaware River managementduring the intervening years is described along with various successes and failuresin water management. A Foreword to the second edition is written by Maya vanRossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper and Executive Director of the Delaware RiverkeeperNetwork, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization that has both successfullyfought dam projects and removed existing dams.
Richard C. Albert is Restoration Director/Scientist with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. He previously worked for the Delaware River Basin Commission and other agencies. His numerous publications include Along the Delaware River (2002).