Delaware Water Gap Could Become National Park

NORTH NEW JERSEY — Nestled in between New Jersey and Pennsylvania lies about 70,000 acres of forested paradise, the Delaware River snaking through the mountains as a resource for recreational adventures and wildlife.

Known as the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, more than five million visitors flock to this outdoor mecca yearly to hike, fish, bike, camp, hunt, swim, paddle a kayak or canoe, picnic, learn about the region’s history and to absorb the sights of the surrounding mountains and waterfalls.

While the National Park Service has a spot on its website hosted for this recreational area, even referring to it as a “park” in the contact section of the webpage for its Bushkill location, the park moniker is not part of the Delaware Water Gap Recreational Area’s official title.

John Donahue, who formerly worked at the recreational area as a park superintendent for 14 years, told The Philadelphia Inquirer recently, “This place, basically, already is a national park.”

He said the National Park Service began overseeing the region in 1975 after a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' concept to create a drinking water reservoir for Philadelphians and New Yorkers went belly up, after environmentalists challenged the idea.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that both New Jersey’s and Pennsylvania’s chapters of the Sierra Club have been rallying for the change, John Kashwick the vice-chair of the New Jersey chapter telling the Inquirer that the Sierra Club has been aiming for it for close to 10 years.

The Sierra Club has a campaign on its Grassroots Network website, where people can join the support team to help bump the recreation area to National Park stature.

“There’s so many people who could be served by this park,” Kashwick told the publication, suggesting with New York City around 70 miles from it and Philadelphia about 100 miles away, people from both cities would benefit from a national park.

Kashwick said in the eastern half of the country, nine national parks are in existence.

The Sierra Club’s Pennsylvania chapter Vice-Chair Donald Miles told the Inquirer that the Delaware Water Gap welcomes about the same number of visitors each year as Yellowstone National Park, which spans parts of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and is famous for its Old Faithful Geyser. However, the Water Gap’s budget is only $8.2 million, according to National Park Service statistics, versus Yellowstone, which in 2019 received $74.5 million in federal funding.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and more seeking fresh air and outdoor recreation to beat the lockdown gloominess, the Recreational Area saw an uptick in visitors, Donahue reported to the Inquirer. In turn, finding parking became a challenge and access to Water Gap waterfalls like Raymondskill - Pennsylvania’s most towering falls - were shuttered as a result. Donahue countered that a National Park designation could deliver more monies to the Water Gap’s coffers to address parking issues and increase access to attractions, as well as permit the now-recreation area to charge an admission price, as many national parks do.

Representatives from the Sierra Club in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are moving forward to drum up support, according to the Inquirer, speaking to leaders in each of the states - both elected and indigenous - as well as locals.

After reaching out at regional levels, the Sierra Club told the Inquirer they’ll approach U.S. Senators and Congressional representatives for the region, which was part of the process how in 2020 the New River Gorge Park and Preserve in West Virginia became the country’s 63rd National Park and West Virginia’s first.

Read more here in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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