---
title: who depends on the rivers at philadelphia
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/who-depends-on-the-rivers-at-philadelphia
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/who-depends-on-the-rivers-at-philadelphia.md
subtitle: "a port on a 45-foot channel, and intakes that also receive the overflow"
category: ecosystem-services
---

# who depends on the rivers at philadelphia

*a port on a 45-foot channel, and intakes that also receive the overflow*

The ship that proved the channel was the CMA CGM Marco Polo, 16,200 TEU, at Packer Avenue Marine Terminal. It could call because the Delaware main channel had reached 45 feet. The water under that berth is the same tidal Delaware that Baxter drinks.

Philadelphia is the door. The living system is the meeting of that tide with the Schuylkill and, at Eastwick, with Cobbs and Darby. The port is one of the publics that stands on the meeting. A container count is the business. These notes do not treat it as a budget for the river.

:::johnson
**the channel and the intake are the same tide.**

Packer Avenue needs depth. Baxter needs the Delaware drinkable. Eastwick needs the tide to stay on a path the creeks can carry.
:::

## the port's year, as the port printed it

PhilaPort, the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, is an independent agency of the Commonwealth. It manages publicly owned terminals on the Delaware in the city. The terminals are leased to operators. The 22 January 2025 release is the document this page uses for 2024 volume.

| 2024, port release | figure |
|--------------------|--------|
| containers | 840,751 TEUs, up 13% |
| new vehicles | 281,819, up 9% |
| total tonnage | up 8% (absolute tons were not in the release) |
| largest ship to call | CMA CGM Marco Polo, 16,200 TEU, Packer Avenue |
| channel | 45 feet, the deepening that call demonstrated |

A later reprint put the container count one thousand TEUs higher. This page uses the port's own 840,751.

The same release announces a $79.7 million award from the EPA Clean Ports Program, for zero-emission cargo-handling equipment and emissions-reduction planning. That money buys machines on the berth and a planning effort. Leave it on the equipment ledger.

The City Controller's September 2026 report, reading the port a different way, puts 2023 throughput at about 6.9 million metric tons and more than 1,100 vessel calls. As of 2024 the same report gives about 12,000 direct and indirect jobs, about $1.5 billion in economic output, and about $321 million in tax impact. Those are the controller's figures. They describe the port's place in the city's economy. They were not opened as a storm loss. Operating revenue was not taken from a primary financial statement for this series. A secondary summary was not used in its place.

## who else depends, and who the river depends on

The water department depends on this tide as source water, and the tide depends on the department as the utility that also discharges to it. Baxter withdrew 144,330,000 gallons a day from the Delaware in 2024. Belmont and Queen Lane withdrew the rest of the 258,180,000 gallon daily total from the Schuylkill. The full split, and why the city is a door rather than the whole basin, is [philadelphia drinks two rivers](/guide/what-philadelphia-stands-on?from=guide).

Wet-weather combined-sewer overflows go back to both rivers when the interceptors fill. The port is not the consent-order party. The overflows are still the river the berth sits in. A channel kept at 45 feet and a river that receives sewage in a hard rain are the same water, read by two institutions. The department's program for the gallons is [who already works the philadelphia gallons](/guide/who-already-works-the-philadelphia-gallons?from=guide).

Eastwick depends on Darby Creek and Cobbs Creek, which meet the Delaware's tide south of the terminals' world and north of the airport. The airport sits on that edge. These notes contain no climate-loss figure for the airport, so the airport stays a neighbor on the map. The tide path itself is [the schuylkill meets a tide](/guide/the-schuylkill-meets-a-tide?from=guide). The night the Schuylkill came into the city is [three waters reach philadelphia](/guide/three-waters-reach-philadelphia?from=guide).

PECO distributes electricity and gas across southeastern Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia. The 2024 operating revenues were $3,973 million, for that territory, not for a Philadelphia-only book. The holding company's filing says those distribution revenues move with delivery volumes, and that weather moved the 2024 book because conditions were less unfavorable than 2023. That is a kilowatt-hour story. It belongs with [what financing urban heat island mitigation actually is](/guide/what-financing-urban-heat-island-mitigation-actually-is?from=guide). Flooded vaults were not given a dollar in these notes. This page does not move the $3,973 million onto the river.

Insurers were not given a Philadelphia book. Hospitals were not given a facility figure. Property owners along the flood edge were not sized. These notes do not price them.

## what the port already did, and what these notes cannot price

The port got a deeper channel and a federal equipment grant. Both are real. A nature investment beside them was not sized. No tide-damage dollar was opened. No port climate-risk study with a facility list was in the notes. A proposal to take the channel to 50 feet appears in coverage of a 2040 plan. It was not treated as a funded project, and it is not treated as one here.

Packer Avenue is the container berth in South Philadelphia. Tioga, the piers, and Port Richmond are other public facilities named in the growth coverage. They were not scored one by one. The federal channel is 45 feet because the deepening made the larger ships possible. Dredging that channel is not a PhilaPort-only asset. The port manages the terminals. The depth is a river the city shares with every other user of the tide, including Baxter upstream of the berth and the creeks at Eastwick that feel the same estuary from the side.

A January 2025 account of the port's growth tracked container gains alongside the larger East Coast trade, and noted that paper which used to move on South Philadelphia piers has gone downriver. That is a cargo story. It is not a flood loss, and it is not a reason to fold another city's harbor into this page. The living system here stays the fall line at Philadelphia.

The dependence is still concrete. A ship of 16,200 TEU called because the channel held 45 feet. If silt, a tide regime, or a storm year makes that depth less reliable, the call can go to another East Coast berth. The 2024 release is a volume story. The loss dollar is absent. Naming the absence is the honest end of the paragraph. Inventing the dollar would make the volume look like a premium.

The other direction matters as much. The Delaware at Packer Avenue depends on a city that withdraws from it and, in wet weather, discharges to it. The port did not create that dependence. The port lives inside it. A page that only asks the port to "protect the river" skips the utility that already holds the consent order, and it skips the houses at Eastwick that meet the same tide through a creek.

## a door that does not name a price

If you run terminals, channel planning, or the engineering seat at a port authority, the public page for that kind of operator is [infrastructure operators](/solutions/infrastructure-operators?from=guide&topic=philadelphia-fall-line). Read it as a map of the work. This series does not attach a unit to the Philadelphia channel, and it does not ask PhilaPort to retitle the Clean Ports money.

The river, as a shared account, is the [water cycle](/water-cycle.syndicate?from=guide) syndicate, and the live parent for a named river is [rivers and lakes](/rivers-lakes.ensurance?from=guide). If you are the person who holds a channel or shore number these notes do not have, [write with the subject line this series can recognize](/contact?from=guide&topic=philadelphia-fall-line). Bring the number. This page did not invent one for you.

## frequently asked questions

### how deep is the delaware channel at philadelphia?

The main channel had reached 45 feet by the time the CMA CGM Marco Polo called Packer Avenue. That call is in PhilaPort's 22 January 2025 release. The ship is 16,200 TEU. A later idea of 50 feet was not treated as a funded project.

### who operates the public terminals?

PhilaPort, the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, an independent agency of Pennsylvania. It manages publicly owned terminals on the Delaware in the city. Operators lease them. This is the city's port on this river. It is a different authority from the ports up the coast and down the coast.

### does the port pay for the river?

These notes do not contain a nature budget for the port. The 2024 container count is 840,751 TEUs. Operating revenue was not taken from a primary statement. The $79.7 million Clean Ports award is cargo-handling equipment and planning. A tide-damage dollar was not opened.

### is the port's water the same water the city drinks?

Baxter takes the Delaware. The berth at Packer Avenue is on that tidal river. Belmont and Queen Lane take the Schuylkill, which joins the Delaware in the city. Wet-weather overflows can discharge to both. The port is not the party on the consent order. The river is still one river.

## sources

[PhilaPort, 22 January 2025](https://www.philaport.com/philaport-marks-historic-milestones-with-major-infrastructure-developments-and-record-volumes/) — 2024 TEUs, vehicles, the Marco Polo call, the 45-foot channel, and the Clean Ports award.

[City Controller, Future of Philadelphia's River Ports, September 2026](https://controller.phila.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/CityController_FutureofPhiladelphiaRiverPorts_September2026.cleaned.pdf) — 2023 tonnage and calls, and the 2024 jobs, output, and tax figures.

[Exelon and PECO, Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2024](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/9466/000110935725000043/exc-20241231.htm) — PECO operating revenues and the weather sentence. Territory-wide. Pointed at the heat series.

[Philadelphia Water Department, 2025 transcript response](https://www.phila.gov/media/20250529095434/2025-PWD-Transcript-Response-Final.pdf) — 2024 Delaware and Schuylkill withdrawals.

## the series

- [philadelphia drinks two rivers](/guide/what-philadelphia-stands-on?from=guide)
- [who depends on the rivers at philadelphia](/guide/who-depends-on-the-rivers-at-philadelphia?from=guide)
- [the schuylkill meets a tide](/guide/the-schuylkill-meets-a-tide?from=guide)
- [three waters reach philadelphia](/guide/three-waters-reach-philadelphia?from=guide)
- [who already works the philadelphia gallons](/guide/who-already-works-the-philadelphia-gallons?from=guide)