Much like Delaware's singular insistence on still mapping out hundreds, a unit of land boundary with origins dating back to the Revolutionary War, the tax ditch is a peculiar feature of First State governance.

A holdover from the colonial period where massive amounts of wetland or semi-swampy lands were drained for agriculture and logging as well as the mitigation of stagnant water-associated diseases, the tax ditch system presents a unique problem to developers seeking to build in southeastern Sussex County.

In December 2002, a public comment hearing on several permit applications by developer Carl M. Freeman Associates brought about vocal resident concern expressed over the proposed filling-in or moving of several tax ditches in the area that will become Americana Bayside, west of Fenwick Island.

In addition to the Americana Bayside tax ditch issue, a recent development application in the town of Millville included a tax ditch bisecting the property to be built upon. Rather than alter it, planners decided to incorporate it into the aesthetic design of the property.

This drew mixed response from townspeople in attendance. "I've seen everything short of dead bodies floating in that ditch," joked one Deer Haven resident.

According to several environmental observers, these situations are indicative of a new look at tax and public ditches in the Inland Bays watershed.

"We do consider them part of the watershed," said Dr. Bruce Richards, executive director of the Center for the Inland Bays.

While most were constructed to aid the drainage of agricultural fields, in the last 30 years or so, they have sometimes been vilified for being little more than nutrient and pollution conduits--funneling chemicals and sediment directly into the Inland Bays basin, he said.

"But I'm all for farmers making a living and being able to get the most out of their land that they can," said Richards.

While most agree tax ditches provide convenient conduits for nutrient and especially phosphorus chemicals, it is not known exactly how much they contribute. Richards emphasized that they are not the "smoking gun" of the ongoing Inland Bays nutrient problems.

"It's important to remember that only 20 percent of the fresh water draining into the bays comes from surface runoff," he explained. The remaining 80 percent comes through ground aquifers.

"It's perhaps time we start looking for beneficial ways to use them for more than just drainage," said Richards, adding that the Center for the Inland Bays is ready to discuss any efforts to examine tax ditches as possible harbors of habitat.

Existing U.S. Department of Agriculture funding under the Conservation Resource Enhancement Program allows farmers and large landowners compensation for planting trees and vegetation that can help absorb excess nutrients that gather in the ditches.

And though the state's current tax ditch system dates back to colonial expansion, it has gone through many forms of organization.

In 1935, Sussex County authorized the sale of bonds for drainage projects, according to a history written by Tom Barthelmeh, a Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) drainage program specialist.

Federal works projects by the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration added significantly to the system throughout the decade.

Beginning in 1951, the state's General Assembly forced a formal structure upon the construction and maintenance of drainage ditches, authoring the tax ditch system still held to today.

The formation of a tax ditch requires a landowner to petition Superior Court, a review and study by the state Division of Soil and Water Conservation, public hearings, a referendum held by the state Board of Ditch Commissioners and, finally, court sanction of the ditch formation.

Once a ditch is approved, the landowners, acting as a ditch organization, can contract to have the drainage body constructed (usually around $4 per linear foot, according to DNREC) and is thereafter responsible for maintaining it.

It was only in the 1970s, Richards said, that scientists truly began to understand the implications of nutrient runoff and its connection with algae blooms, low dissolved oxygen and high bacterial counts in large receiving bodies of water.

Dr. William Ullman, a geochemist at the University of Delaware, is in the process of studying the effect tax ditches have on local watersheds.

In conjunction with the U.S. Geological Survey, Ullman is testing the rate of phosphorus that reaches the Inland Bays through normal water flow.

"I don't think there is any doubt that tax ditches are a conduit for nutrient and phosphorus runoff," Ullman said, "but the question is how much?"

By understanding how tax ditches alter or accelerate nutrient and other pollutant runoff, Ullman, Richards and others hope to find ways to control that runoff without compromising the drainage benefits of the ditches.

"There are ways we can help install buffers to absorb the nutrients," Richards said. "In particular, recently we discovered a particular form of grass in several ditches that is very healthful for the Inland Bays. If we can find out what makes it thrive there, then that could help certainly in the long run."

Reach John Duffy at (302) 537-1881, ext. 106, or by e-mail at mailto:jduffy@smgpo.gannett.com

Originally published Wednesday, February 19, 2003