Environmental Group Says Delaware River is One of the Nation's Most Polluted

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

March 22, 2012 | 5:14 PM

Susan Phillips / StateImpact Pennsylvania

A view of the Delaware River from Milford, Pa.

Pennsylvania’s rivers and streams received more than 10 million pounds of toxic chemicals in 2010. That’s according to a report issued Thursday by PennEnvironment using data from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory.
The report, Wasting Our Waterways: Industrial Toxic Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act, says the EPA data shows the Delaware River took in 2.6 million pounds of toxins in 2010, making it fifth in the nation for the total amount of discharges.
The Toxics Release Inventory is part of the Community Right to Know Act. The EPA tracks the disposal of more than 650 toxic chemicals from industrial plants nationwide.