Poll Results: Where does the Delaware River end and the Delaware Bay begin?
You may have noticed that the polls happening between the Democratic Pref polls are more like trivia questions. I like trivia. I put this one up to force myself to find the answer to the question.
It is a tricky one. The end of the Delaware River and the beginning of the Delaware Bay seems to be a moving target. I couldn’t find anything definitive, but if we used the “the salt line” as a starting point, we get the river ending and the bay starting just above the Christiana River at RM71. I guess RM means “River Mile” with the mouth of the Delaware Bay being (ironically for our purposes) RM0.0. According to the DRBC’s RM standard for measuring the length of the Delaware River, there is no bay – IT IS ALL RIVER! Incidentally, the Delaware Memorial Bridge is RM68.7, so people who picked the bridge were pretty close.
Anyhoo… RM71 is the “median monthly salt front” according to the Delaware River Basin Commission. The DRBC keeps an eye on the salt line because salt is bad for commercial operations along the river. When fresh water flow goes down (during a drought for example) the salt line creeps north. If it creeps too far north, the DRBC has ENORMOUS reservoirs in New York and Pennsylvania from which it releases water to flush back the salt. It is one of those millions of invisible ways governments make your life better without you ever knowing or giving a flying fuck about it.
Bonus: The Delaware is the 33rd largest river in the United States in terms of flow, but the nation’s #1 river in daily volume of tonnage, so says wikipedia. I don’t know how that can be true, but Suck it Mississippi!
“Suck it Mississippi!”, and why not? They suck at everything else.
Around 30% of you smart people knew that if you got on Rt 202 at its southern terminus and stayed on it until it ended you’d end up in Maine. Bangore Maine to be precise. To be even more precise, you’d be at the intersection of Main, Central, State and Hammond streets, in downtown Bangore.
Bonus: U.S. Route 202 was created in 1926, which was a banner year for numbered highways.. Also born in 1926, Alan Greenspan, American economist, Federal Reserve Chairman.
If it’s true that Delaware controls all of the river (but not the bay) up to the low tide line on the Jersey side, then RM71 would be too far north. Because of the original low tide rule, Delaware controls the Delaware River Nature Reserve on the Jersey side. But for us to control that land (which we do), it would have to still qualify as the river at that point (well south of RM71).
Excellent point. Now I think we are getting somewhere.