The tanker Courier heads for the ocean after unloading crude oil at Valero Refining Co. in Gibbstown.
More water means the ability to move more crude oil up river for processing for less money.
Environmentally, it means fewer ships on the 102-mile stretch of the river between Camden and the sea, and less lightering, a costly and somewhat risky process in which oil is transferred at sea from a larger ship to a smaller one that draws less water. And doing a little something for the oil industry, Harris says, is not out of line. The Delaware's six refineries, owned by five companies, make it the largest refining cluster in the United States. The one million barrels of crude oil a day they produce puts the Delaware second only to the Gulf Coast in volume. Oil tankers accounted for nearly 30 percent of the 3,150 ships that sailed the Delaware last year.