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Upper Delaware Council Sponsors River Safety Billboards Campaign
NARROWSBURG – The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) joins the National Park Service Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River in promoting a safe summer recreational season by sponsoring a public river safety campaign.
Three billboards were installed by Adams Outdoor Advertising on May 19 to encourage the use of life jackets while swimming, boating, fishing, or floating.
The locations are at common entrance points to the bi-state Upper Delaware River region, including a brand-new digital billboard on Interstate 84 East, and poster boards on U.S. Route 6/209 East between Milford and Greeley, PA, and on PA Route 652 between Honesdale, PA and Narrowsburg, NY.
The 2025 design illustrates four individuals standing next to each other wearing orange personal flotation devices, as seen from behind gazing out at a waterway, with a couple hands on each other’s shoulders. The message reads, “Always have their backs! Tell friends: WEAR IT”.
The UDC non-profit organization, whose voting members are 13 local governments, the State of New York, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that border along the river, are partnering on the $5,000 campaign to keep the motivational billboards up through Sept. 7.
Adams Outdoor Advertising’s Pocono Region office in Hawley, PA created the design, maintains the billboards, and donated the rental cost for the Rt. 6 location as a public service.
The UDC serves on the NPS Upper Delaware’s national award-winning Water Safety Committee, reviews its activities through the Council’s Water Use/Resource Management Committee, and holds annual pre- and post-season Water Safety Partners meetings for commercial livery businesses, the volunteer National Canoe Safety Patrol, and regional law enforcement officials at its Narrowsburg office.
On average, two people drown each year in the Upper Delaware River. No one who was wearing a properly fitted life jacket has ever drowned, however. By law, every person on the river using any aquatic device or vessel is required to have a life jacket within reach. Children 12 years and younger must wear those life jackets. During high water events (six feet+) and in cold water months (between Nov. 1 and April 30), life jacket wear becomes mandatory for everyone.
The NPS offers life jacket loaner stations along the river between Memorial Day and Labor Day for those who need to borrow them, as well as a recorded hotline to check on river conditions at (845) 252-7100. Alerts are also posted along with site-specific river safety precautionary information at https://www.nps.gov/upde/planyourvisit/river-safety.htm.
For more information on the UDC and its activities, please call (845) 252-3022, visit www.upperdelawarecouncil.org, or follow Upper Delaware Council on Facebook and Instagram.