No. The present use of route 209 will continue and not be closed. It will remain unchanged. If Federal Road 209 is closed it reverts to Pennsylvania.

No. The National Park Service (NPS) had public hearings about an entrance fee and the idea was rejected. Change in designation is unrelated to fees.

No. There are no national parks that prohibit fishing

No. No state lands are involved in this proposal.

The proposal is to take the existing federal lands within DEWA and elevate a small portion of those lands to become the Delaware River National Park and designate the remainder as a National Preserve There are no state lands or private lands involved in this elevation.

No. There will continue to be 50,000 to 55,000 acres of huntable land within the existing federal lands, to be designated as the Lenape National Preserve. All forms of hunting currently allowed in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area will continue to be allowed in the Lenape National Preserve portion of the Delaware River National Park proposal. The great majority of the land will continue to have all currently allowed hunting.

No. The only impact will be that hunting is not allowed in the very small portion of the existing federal lands that are elevated to the national park status. Hunting and the economic benefit it brings will continue in the 50,000 to 55,000 acres of federal land and in the hundreds of thousands of acres surrounding it just as it does now. There is no reason to suspect it will change the numbers of hunter days and there is a good chance they will increase because hunting in areas adjacent to national parks is regarded as the best hunting. Hunters comprise 2% of all current DEWA users.

The designations are defined by the Congressional Research Service on the National Park Service website.

1) A National Park is the highest level of protection accorded by Congress, because it prohibits consumptive uses such as cattle grazing, oil drilling, or hunting and trapping.

2) A National Preserve is an area surrounding or adjacent to a national park normally with similar extraordinary resources but where Congress has decided to allow consumptive uses. In the Lenape Preserve hunting would be allowed, but not other consumptive uses.

3) A National Recreation Area is a strip of land surrounding a man made lake created by a dam. After the incorrect designation of DEWA, the definition was changed to include areas near urban centers.

Congress intended to build the Tocks Island Dam and flood the Delaware Valley. Most of the residents were evicted and their property was taken by eminent domain. Despite their losses, the local people successfully fought the flooding of their beloved valley and stopped the Army Corps of Engineers from destroying it.

There are several important reasons for this change.

a) DEWA, while designated a recreation area, never met the criteria to be one. It was never land surrounding a man made lake behind a dam, but after the debacle that was the Tocks Island Dam, Congress proceeded with the creation of the park despite the obvious error of designation.

b) These resources found within DEWA are singularly spectacular and deserve the recognition of national park and preserve status. The sixty million people who live within a day’s drive deserve the outdoor equity they were promised in 1965, creating a National Park for the 42 million residents of PA, NJ & NY who currently don’t have one.

c) All national park units received an increase in funding this year. However, DEWA has not received a substantial funding increase in many years and redesignation is the best chance to secure additional funding. It welcomes almost as many visitors annually as Yellowstone on ⅓ of the budget, and redesignation best positions advocates to seek more funding through normal processes.

DEWA contains the Appalachian Trail and the 9/11 Memorial Trail; it contains 42 miles of the longest undammed river in the Eastern United States; it includes the Kittatinny Ridge, a famous migratory highway; it is the northern terminus of many species and the southern terminus of many others. DEWA contains 12,000 years of documented human occupation within the homeland of the Lenape people. DEWA is the center of hundreds of thousands of acres of connected landscape, including the Pennsylvania state lands, the river and the New Jersey state lands that all combine to make a singularly spectacular complex within a short distance of the most populated region of our country. This gem of our American Heritage deserves to be placed in the crown of the National Park system along with all of the other crown jewels of our country.

President Johnson made it clear in his comments on signing the law that the impetus for the project was to provide nature based recreational opportunities for the 15% of the American people who lived within a day's drive of the new park. Those 30 million people at the time were the specific reason for the creation of the recreation area according to Congress and President Johnson. Today those people number 60 million and need their national park more than ever as we have seen conclusively these past years of the pandemic.

We are likely to see an increase in visitors and spending. West Virginia’s recently redesignated New River Gorge, as a National Park and Preserve, reported an increase of 600,000 visitors in the first year, increasing from 1.1 million to 1.7 million. We are starting with a much larger visitation of 4 million and don't expect the visitation to grow all at once, but over time. The tourists will buy food, gasoline and hotel rooms locally. All boats rise with a high tide and the national park and preserve designation will aid all of the local economies.

No, this is a proposal for all Americans and not to manage municipal problems. This is a tourist area and enhancing the visitor experiences enhances all of the businesses and the tax base of the surrounding areas.

Potentially, if willing sellers would like to add their land to the Preserve. Authorization for local lands acquired in the future from willing sellers would offset any impact on hunting.

No. “Willing Sellers” means exactly that. This proposal does not support any land acquired except from willing sellers. Since the year 2000, over 3,000 acres of land has been purchased from property owners who contacted the National Park Service about selling and were interested in preserving their land as open space for hunting and conservation purposes in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

The opponents of the National Park have used eminent domain to frighten people without reason. They have been fear-mongering to the detriment of the truth and the public good.

No, because funding of the new entities will, as always, be up to the U.S. Congress to provide. Authorization of a park and appropriations are two different processes that occur separately in Congress. All national park units received an increase in 2022. However, the existing designation, Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, has seen very few substantial increases in federal funding for decades. Continuing the current situation is unlikely to result in any more federal money to improve the land and infrastructure. Redesignation as a National Park and Preserve will best position the park to receive more staff, more funding and more improvements to the roads, parking, beaches, and other recreational infrastructure. No change in designation guarantees there will be no infrastructure improvements; redesignation provides a path for these improvements.

Yes. Currently over 4 million people annually visit DEWA, almost as many as visit Yellowstone National Park, and visitation already increases every year. It is likely redesignation will improve the visibility of the park and that folks who don’t know about it now may learn about it and decide to visit. That is their right as Americans and the 42 million people who live in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York have been denied access to a nearby National Park, the closest of which is hundreds of miles away. This sacred American place was created for the very people in the nearby urban complex of Trenton, Philadelphia and the greater New York City Area. Families should be able to enjoy a National Park even if they do not have the time or money to travel hundreds of miles.

No. To be clear, the National Park Service has cut down forested land to create open field habitat in the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area. This was done in cooperation with hunting clubs to improve habitat for grouse and wild turkey hunting. The proposed redesignation would prohibit forest to field conversion in the National Park, but it would be allowed in the Lenape Preserve depending on public opinion.

No. In 1976, the Mining in the Parks Act closed all units of the National Park System to new mining.