before we leave you tonight we want to remind you about our latest digital project Water's Edge the trials and tributaries of the Delaware River Watershed it's a multi-part series examining the troubled history of the Delaware River's transformation from a polluted body of water full of sewage and chemical waste to a recreational destination for the region but the cleanup work is far from over and the woman who's been the Delaware River's most vocal Defender is its River Keeper Maya van Rossum she sat down with Brianna vinozzi earlier this week Maya when we think about improvements to the Delaware River and specifically to the lower Delaware where have we seen the biggest strides and what would you say are the biggest challenges that remain well I think most people have heard the story of the Delaware River and how in the 40s 50s and 60s it was so polluted we had a 20 mile oxygen Dead Zone in the Philadelphia Camden reach of the river top to bottom bank to bank you could smell the River from a plane and when ships came up their engines would be clogged because of the amount of contamination or pollution in the river and a lot of that those problems were due to nutrient pollution really um from sewage treatment plants and so through environmental activism and laws at the state level the federal level and through the regional Delaware River Basin commission we made a lot of progress and cleaned up a lot of that pollution so that's an area where we've had dramatic progress but there's still a lot of work to do I think when we just look overall at what needs to happen for the Delaware River we really need our state federal and Regional Delaware River Basin commission to be much more proactive in not just trying to clean up the harm from the past but saying no to new threats to our Delaware River are there species that are native to this part of the river in particular that are at heightened danger there there are a lot of species that really are suffering because of pollution contamination inappropriate dredging and development projects and one of the most iconic that I have literally for my entire 30-year career is the Delaware River Keeper been working to save is the Delaware Rivers genetically unique population of Atlantic sturgeon this is a population of Atlantic sturgeon that only exists in our beautiful Delaware River and because of all of these harms to the river again pollution dredging Devastation to their habitat and the lack of oxygen necessary at the levels to support the procreation the propagation and the thriving of the species at this point we have less than 250 spawning adults left that's all you know I think a lot of folks maybe take for granted where it's at now if they haven't been around to see just what it was like decades ago and all that had to be done what do you think isn't talked about when it comes to the Watershed and how far it's come what's not been a part of the conversation that you think needs to be so that folks keep in mind just how vital a resource it is we are not recognizing that the Delaware river is an intimate part of many people's lives and for low-income communities communities of color it is a source of recreation it is a source of food for them it is the place that they can go and enjoy nature and get extra food for their plate through fishing for you know multiple species in the river and yet engaging in some of those activities because of ongoing pollution can be a real threat to those communities Maya van Rossum Delaware River Keeper thank you so much as always for your Insight on this thanks for having me I appreciate the opportunity [Music]