TO FUTURE HEALTH: The Delaware River cleanup will benefit joggers and cyclists. Motofish Images/Corbis

It was a sweltering late-summer day when Nick DiPasquale raced up the front lawn of the Delaware City nursing home where Grace Pierce-Beck lived. He had big news for the longtime environmental activist: after almost two decades, the fight that she had started against one of the world's most powerful oil companies had come to a close, and Pierce-Beck had won.

In 1986, Pierce-Beck called NRDC out of the blue to alert the organization's attorneys to Texaco's pollution of the Delaware River. Internal files later released by Texaco would reveal that the company's Delaware City oil refinery had been routinely violating its Clean Water Act permit by dumping vast quantities of oil, grease, and highly carcinogenic polyaromatic hydrocarbons into the Delaware. The health of the river and of surrounding communities was put at risk.

Pierce-Beck was then in charge of conservation programs at the Delaware Audubon Society, a role that DiPasquale has since taken over. The society joined NRDC in filing suit against Texaco in 1988, and at the time there was little indication that the case would develop into an epic battle. But it did. Over the ensuing decades, NRDC and the Delaware Audubon Society dragged Texaco to court five times, and each time Texaco defied court orders to conduct a study on the impacts of its illegal discharges into the Delaware River.

Finally on September 30, 2007, the day before the oil giant was due back in court on contempt charges, Texaco settled, agreeing to pay out $2.25 million to six environmental organizations in the state. The money will be used for remediation projects that will benefit residents of Delaware City and the surrounding area. Among the plans: restoration of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal waterfront, including a new recreational path, and, most important, clean water.