Situated between Pennsylvania and New Jersey sits the 70,000-acre Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.
Advocates from both states are hoping to update the park’s name to Delaware River National Park and Lenape Preserve and change its official designation.
“The reason why we want to do this is to recognize that this gem of our American heritage belongs in the crown jewels of the National Park Service,” said John Donahue, the park’s superintendent from 2003 to 2017. “Here you have the longest un-dammed river in the eastern United States, you have the Appalachian Trail… the tallest waterfall in Pennsylvania, you have 12,000 years of documented human occupation, you have all of this taking place in the homeland of the Lenape people.”
Switching out recreation area for national park would put the Water Gap on a short list of 63 prestigious parks throughout the United States and make it the first in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Donahue, a retired superintendent of the park, began campaigning in 2021 alongside Pennsylvania Sierra Club co-chair Don Miles and New Jersey Sierra Club chair John Kashwick to rename and redesignate the Water Gap.
The National Park service gives different designations for the units it oversees — Steamtown in Scranton is a National Historic Site, Gettysburg is a National Military Site and Flight 93 near Johnstown is a National Memorial.
National Park is reserved for the big parks – or as Donahue says the department’s “crown jewels” — like the Grand Canyon in Arizona or Pennsylvania’s closest, Shenandoah in Virginia.
Making the area a national park could bring in more funding to update roads and add more parking and boat access.
“We hope that this will be an opportunity to enhance not only federal appropriations, but to bring more private investment into the area. So we see it as being good for all of the local people and all of the visitors,” said Donahue.
Miles said the park does not have enough campgrounds, beaches or rangers.
“None of that will change if it remains a National Recreation Area,” he said. “There are 42 million people that live in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. And none of those states have a national park…. The people that live in this area deserve to be able to get to a national park economically and without a lot of trouble.”
The park's base annual operational budget is around $10 million and comes from regular appropriations from Congress, said Kathleen Sandt, spokesperson for the Delaware Water Gap. The funding is determined by a variety of factors including the number of visitors, acreage, road and trail mileage. In 2021 it was the 15th most visited park in the national park system with 4.3 million visitors, matching Yellowstone, she said.
At the park, visitors can camp, view Native American archeological sites, swim, fish and paddle on the Delaware River, summit two mountains, hike both technical and accessible trails, view waterfalls, rock climb and bike.
“In addition to providing opportunities for people to come out and recreate and enjoy the parks, we are also charged with doing that in a way that also protects our park resources,” said Sandt.
She added visitors also come to the park to see native wildflowers, fall foliage, vegetation in Hemlock ravines near the waterfalls and an array of wildlife.
Visitors also practice archery, bird watch, hunt, bicycle and cross country ski, said Miles.
“There's none of these spectacular things like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone,” said Miles. “But most National Parks don't have those things. National Parks are places that are special for the area.”
The advocates have held webinars about their proposals with various groups including hunting and sportsman groups, bikers and birders. They want all of the park’s stakeholders to be a part of the process.
“I said to people each time ‘tell me something you think that you'd like to do that you can't do at the Water Gap’ and nobody can come up with anything,” said Miles.
Opponents to the change worry that a national park designation will ban hunting and add a visitors fee to use the park. The advocates are modeling the park after the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in West Virginia. Hunting will be allowed in the part of the park designated as a preserve, named to honor the Lenape’s homeland. It’s too early in the process to say what part of the 70,000 acres will fall into that category.
The Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen and Conservationists came out against the redesignation on March 4 in a press release. President Lowell Graybill said the group is concerned they will see a substantial loss of huntable acres in the park, among other issues.
National Park entrance fees range from $10 to $55, depending on the pass or type of vehicle. Donahue says the park has had fees to use facilities since the 80s.
Donahue said the prestige that comes with the title of National Park will bring international significance and visitors to the water gap.
“More importantly, it'll enhance the economy of all the towns,” he said.
The boundaries of the national recreation area include two states – Pennsylvania and New Jersey – five counties, including Monroe and Pike, and 22 townships.
“New York State is only a stone's throw away from the northern New Jersey boundary of the park,” Donahue said.
In the mid-1950s, the Army Corp of Engineers began acquiring the park’s land from property owners to dam the Delaware River at Tocks Island. The land was designated a national recreation area in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. And by 1975, the plan to dam the river and create a lake-sized reservoir was scrapped.
With the largest waterfall in Pennsylvania gushing behind him in March, Donahue referenced Johnson’s remarks when the president established what he called at the time the Delaware Water National Recreational Area.
In the White House Rose Garden in 1965 alongside then-Pennsylvania Governor William W. Scranton, Johnson said the park is meant to enhance the lives of those living in East Coast cities.
In audio from the water gap’s signing ceremony provided to WVIA News from the LBJ Presidential Library, Johnson said Americans “confined within the discomforts of noise and ugliness, surrounded by decaying buildings and despoiled landscapes” yearn for beauty and hunger and for the opportunity to find refreshment in nature.
“These yearnings have their roots deep in our American dream: an almost mystical dream of virgin forests and rich, deep soil, and a place where a man could try to discover the meaning of his life,” the president said 56 years ago. “The Delaware Water Gap National Recreational Area will be just such a place… Here they will come and they will swim and they will fish and they will camp out, and their lives will be infinitely richer because they came this way.”
The park is within a six hour drive of the 50 to 60 million people who live within the Boston to Washington corridor, said Sandt.
The advocates hope to have a national park in PA and New Jersey this year or at least by the next presidential election in 2024.
