Delaware River

The Delaware River is a major Mid-Atlantic river that flows 282 miles from the confluence of its East and West branches at Hancock, New York, through Pennsylvania and along the New Jersey and Delaware borders before emptying into Delaware Bay. Its drainage basin covers 13,539 square miles (35,070 km2) across five states and supplies drinking water to roughly 17 million people. The river forms a continuous interstate border — separating New York from Pennsylvania along the upper river, then dividing Pennsylvania from New Jersey, and finally New Jersey from Delaware downstream. The Delaware rises from two branches in the Catskill Mountains of New York: the West Branch on Mount Jefferson in Schoharie County and the East Branch near Grand Gorge in Delaware County. The two branches meet at Hancock at an elevation of 880 feet. The main stem of the Delaware is the longest free-flowing river in the Eastern United States — no dams interrupt the main channel from Hancock to the Atlantic. The upper Delaware is federally designated as the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River and administered by the National Park Service. The river's east branch is impounded upstream of the main stem by the Cannonsville Reservoir (West Branch) and the Pepacton Reservoir (East Branch); cold-water releases from these New York City water-supply reservoirs sustain one of the most significant wild trout fisheries in the eastern United States immediately downstream.