Amy Souers is online editor for American Rivers in Washington, D.C. She is on a two-month cross-country road trip exploring America’s rivers.

Monday, 5 Jun 2000

WERNERSVILLE, Penn.

Today I left Washington, D.C., and my home river, the Potomac. Ask any paddler, angler, or other river person in this city and they’ll tell you that the Potomac Gorge, the 15-mile reach from Great Falls to Georgetown, is the wildest, most natural river in a major metro area anywhere in the world.

Slide your boat into the water at the Old Angler’s put-in or hike along the Billy Goat Trail and you’ll see why the river is such a source of local pride: the mountain laurel along the banks, the pot-holed rocks, the great blue herons and the little water snakes, the thundering cascades of the Falls, the delicate casings of dragonfly nymphs above the waterline.

The Gorge is a migratory flyway. If you go out paddling, you’ll regularly see cormorants, and every so often a bald eagle. One hundred rare and endangered plants live along the river. And the Maryland Department of Natural Resources calls the bedrock terrace habitats “more extensive and pristine than anywhere in the Eastern U.S.”

Native Americans have lived on the river since before 4,000 B.C. And as all Marylanders learn in fourth grade, the Potomac was the centerpiece of colonial settlement and the Civil War.

There is a great local group working to protect all of this — the Potomac Conservancy. Since 1993, the Conservancy has been encouraging landowners to donate conservation easements to safeguard the river’s natural features. Members of the Conservancy like to get their hands dirty — from taking water samples to collecting trash to restoring native plants.

Poolesville students pull weeds along the Potomac.

I recently joined the Conservancy and 16 sophomores from Poolesville High School to fix up part of the riverbank that had been damaged in the flood of ’96. Matt Berres, director of watershed programs for the Conservancy, showed us the non-native Japanese stilt grass (Microstegium vimineum) and ground ivy (Glecoma hederacea), and we got to work with the kids, pulling out the plants and filling garbage bags.

Then we grabbed some shovels and planted the grasses and shrubs that belong on the Potomac, the rice-cutgrass, red maple, green ash, spicebush, and shadbush — the ones that provide good habitat and food for insects and birds and wildlife.

“It’s so much better than math class,” said Ameerah, a Poolesville student. “We’re informed. It’s good to do hands-on work.” Her friend Leah, nursing some stinging nettle welts, added, “This is a lot more real than sitting in a classroom.” She wore her welts like a badge of honor. My kind of girl.

This summer, the Conservancy will run evening canoe trips on the river. “We’ve had such great luck teaching kids, why not try it with adults?” asks Carrie Stokes of the Conservancy. “When you’re on this serene, peaceful canoe trip and you suddenly see someone’s backyard totally cleared of trees and mowed right down to the bank, well, it makes you stop and think. Our first goal is awareness. We don’t want to preach at people. We just want to show people this great wild river flowing right through the heart of our nation’s capital.”

The Conservancy is also helping to bring back shad, a migratory fish. Just as salmon are an icon of the Pacific Northwest, shad were once the emblematic fish of the Chesapeake Bay states. Not many people in the D.C. area realize that these fish once threaded their way from the ocean up our rivers and streams, all the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains. While dams and pollution wiped out many shad populations over the past 150 years, today the restoration effort is well underway.

The Conservancy recently helped secure a fish passage at the Little Falls Dam, just downstream from where the Poolesville kids were working. The dam was built in 1959 for Washington, D.C., water supply. The fish passage is a series of three “W” shaped barriers that slow the flow of water through the 24-foot notch in the dam. It’s designed primarily for shad, but other migratory fish like river herring, striped bass, and white perch, and resident species including smallmouth and largemouth bass, bluegill, and walleye, will finally be able to reach critical habitat beyond the dam.

As I drove north from the Potomac today, I crossed another Chesapeake Bay tributary, the Susquehanna. A record number of shad returned here this spring, thanks in large part to better fish-passage facilities at dams and improved water quality.

I stopped in Wernersville, Penn., to have lunch with my grandmother, who we all call Bunny. She has lived in this area for most of her 80 years. She told me about her memories of the Schuylkill River, which flows through Reading, Penn., and empties into the Delaware River. Bunny remembered how she used to visit her great uncle in Reading when she was a little girl. He had a white handlebar mustache and “blue twinkling eyes” and lived in a big white house. He loved to tend his rose beds, but when the Schuylkill overflowed its banks, it would cover his yard and roses in black silt. Bunny explained that this was because the river was full of coal dirt and waste from the many nearby mines.

“When I was little, the Schuylkill was black. And when they finally got around to cleaning it up, well then it actually looked like a river again,” she said.

The river really has come back to life. Over the next several days, the Schuylkill River Greenway Association and 30 other organizations are sponsoring the second annual Schuylkill River Sojourn — a 106-mile canoe and kayak trip for both avid and amateur paddlers.

That’s it for today. As I type this, the clouds are darkening overhead. I hope it pours, so I can go out and play in the rain. I can’t think of a better way to end a long day of driving!

I started out thinking of America as highways and state lines. As I got to know it better, I began to think of it as rivers. Most of what I love about the country is a gift of the rivers. … America is a great story, and there is a river on every page of it.
– Charles Kuralt

Tuesday, 6 Jun 2000

DOYLESTOWN, Penn.

The Delaware River forms the boundary of New York and Pennsylvania. It’s also the boundary of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And it also separates New Jersey and Delaware.

With all of these boundaries, it’s hard to know who really looks after the river. Russ Johnson says the Delaware is a river “that can easily fall through the cracks.” But Russ, who works for the Heritage Conservancy, is making sure that doesn’t happen. Today, he drove me through the valley to show me some of the Conservancy’s restoration projects.

Russ Johnson, pointing out erosion problems along Park Creek.

Our first stop was Park Creek, a small stream that eventually
feeds into the Delaware. The creek had been suffering from erosion and sedimentation, so this spring the Conservancy and the township restored a section of stream bank. Russ explained that first they had to resculpt the bank into a more natural slope. Then, they stabilized the bank to prevent further erosion using biodegradable coconut fiber mats and a “log” made of coconut husks. Finally, they planted native grasses and shrubs that will remain once the mats break down.

At our next stop, Martin’s Creek, we got a glimpse of what Park Creek could look like in a year. A similar restoration project happened here last year and already the native plants are lush and thick (and the rain that fell all day today made everything look especially green!).

Martin’s Creek, one year after restoration.

As Russ drove me through the valley, he pointed out what he calls “starter castles” — the big, new single family homes popping up in what was once farmland. With more development, roads, and parking lots in the watershed, water quality diminishes. Russ told me that when the water quality goes down 10 to 15 percent, you lose rare and endangered species. And when it drops 25 to 30 percent, most native species disappear.

Planting riparian buffer strips — those swaths of grasses, shrubs, and trees along stream banks — can go a long way toward keeping water quality high and protecting native fish, birds, and wildlife. These buffer strips not only prevent erosion, they filter out pollutants and provide good habitat.

Russ said that in addition to dealing with all of the development issues, one big problem he faces is that not everyone knows what a “watershed” is. “Most people know what school district they live in. So shouldn’t people also know what watershed they live in? Shouldn’t they know what water management district they live in?” he wonders. He doesn’t think it would be such a bad idea if we took a lesson from New Zealand — that country rearranged its political lines based on watershed boundaries.

The Musconetcong River, tributary to the Delaware.

Other wild and scenic designations Russ hopes to move forward are the lower Delaware River and Musconetcong River. We met John Brunner of the Musconetcong Watershed Association on the riverbank at the old Riegels paper mill site, then drove up winding roads through the little town of Riegelstown. John, an avid canoeist, said the river, known locally as the “Musky,” is “little but strong.” He told us the river’s name comes from the Lenape, meaning “moving water.” We passed several old mills, evidence of the river’s historic and industrial legacy. The river is popular with anglers — the limestone in the area makes for good trout fishing — as well as paddlers.

“The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act isn’t just for pristine Western rivers,” John said. “It also exists to protect cultural and historic values.”

We got out of the car and stood on one of the many little single-lane bridges that cross the river. The water was shallow but quick under our feet. John, a music major in college, was explaining how he ended up in the watershed-protection business. He said it was actually pretty simple: “There’s a thin line between rivers and music.”

Wednesday, 7 Jun 2000

PATERSON, N.J.

I have to admit I was pretty ignorant about New Jersey’s Passaic River. I thought it was little more than a cement-lined urban channel with lots of toxic and chemical pollution problems. But that’s not the case at all. Ella Filippone of the Passaic River Coalition took me on a grand tour of the watershed today. She showed me that while this river faces a variety of threats, its cultural and historic heritage rival any in the nation.

The Passaic flows in the shape of an inverted “U” through New Jersey and empties into Newark Bay. The 935-acre watershed stretches from the headwaters in the forested New Jersey Highlands to the wetlands of the central valley to the heavily urbanized lower valley, with cities like Newark and Paterson. Over 3 million people live in the watershed.

Gorge-ous Millington Gorge.

Our first stop today was Millington Gorge, a little stretch of the Passaic River that the Army Corps of Engineers wanted to dam in 1969. Ella and I walked out on the railroad bridge that crosses the river. There were no spectacular rapids, no breathtaking cliffs — this was a very quiet and peaceful spot, lush and leafy with trees thick along the banks. The fact that this part of the river could have been blocked and flooded by a dam made it all the more special now.

Ella is still trying to get an Army Corps flood tunnel deauthorized. She said the 21-mile-long tunnel would capture floodwaters and pipe them out to Newark Bay, wreaking havoc on the river’s natural cycles.

After seeing the Gorge, we drove to St. Joseph’s Villa, a Catholic retreat. Here on Long Hill you get a great view of the watershed and the Highlands. A very long time ago, this hill was actually an island in the middle of the glacial Lake Passaic. We looked out over the landscape and tried to imagine it all covered with water.

Houses on the floodplain.

Next, Ella took me to a place where water does cover much of the land periodically — a community called Lincoln Park. These houses are built in the river’s floodplain. When the river overflows its banks, homes are flooded. Many of the houses here are raised up on stilts and cinderblocks.

Hoffman Grove is another collection of houses that is regularly flooded. The community began in the 1930s as a sporting club for city people who wanted to fish and boat. After World War II the houses were winterized and people began living here year-round. “Every time it rains, it floods. This is the worst in the watershed,” Ella said. The Passaic River Coalition is helping to solve flooding problems by acquiring chronically flooded homes like these. The group helped buy out 138 homes in 1995 with money provided through New Jersey’s Blue Acres program.

The Passaic’s falls … they’re grrreat.

The most memorable part of the day was our visit to the Great Falls in the town of Paterson. I come from the Potomac River and our Great Falls are pretty amazing. But the Passaic’s falls are the second-highest on the East Coast (second only to Niagara). And here, you can get so close to the thundering water that you feel the spray on your face.

“They’re not just the Great Falls, they’re the great Great Falls. They’re the icon of this river system,” says Ella.

A statue of Alexander Hamilton overlooks the river here. In the late 1700s, wishing for America to achieve independence from British manufacturers, he pushed forward the damming and harnessing of the falls. The water, diverted down into a series of raceways through town, turned the mill wheels and powered the factories. Many of the old brick buildings still stand today.

Ella wishes the park around the falls would be refurbished. She doesn’t mince her words. “It’s disgraceful! It’s an embarrassment!” she says. She would love to tear down the ugly black fences that block views, put seats back on the benches, trim some of the overgrown weeds. With a little care, the falls and park could becom
e a real attraction and a source of community pride.

The Dundee Dam, sans much-needed fish passage.

In the 1960s the Passaic was one of the most polluted rivers in the U.S., thanks to its long industrial legacy and poor sewage treatment facilities. But today, in large part because of the Passaic River Coalition’s efforts, water quality is better than ever. Glenn Hutton, the volunteer at the little two-room Great Falls visitor center, told us that people are catching northern pike and brown trout at the base of the falls.

Shad might soon be swimming up here, too. One of our last stops of the day was Dundee Dam, the first barrier the fish encounter as they try to migrate upriver. Ella is working to install a fish passage here so the fish can reach upstream habitat.

Tomorrow I will travel upstream myself, to New England!

Thursday, 8 Jun 2000

SIMSBURY, Conn.

This morning I left the Passaic River watershed in New Jersey, crossed the Hudson River, and entered New England. The one good thing about traffic is that it lets you snap pictures. (That’s the Hudson River below.)

In Simsbury, Conn., I met Kevin Case of the Farmington River Watershed Association. Kevin grew up in Barkhamsted, a nearby town, so he knows this watershed better than most.

The Farmington River begins in Becket, Mass., and flows 81 miles to Windsor, Conn., where it meets the Connecticut River. More than 400,000 people in the greater Hartford area drink water from the Farmington. And more than 14 million gallons of treated wastewater enter the Farmington River each day.

Kevin said that the river today is in fairly good shape, but that it still faces threats. The EPA recently gave the watershed the highest possible water quality ranking, as well as the highest possible vulnerability ranking.

Kevin’s primary concern is the rapid growth of towns along the river — the new roads and parking lots and runoff problems.

“What effects will this sprawl and all of the associated non-point source pollution have on the river, on the water quality?” he asks.

Back in the late 1800s, most of the pollution came from paper mills, tanneries, cotton mills, sawmills, and foundries. The dams that were built on the river to power the mills blocked runs of Atlantic salmon and other migratory fish.

As part of Connecticut’s Atlantic Salmon Restoration Project, more than 1 million juvenile salmon were stocked in the river and its tributaries every year between 1995 and 1999. But so far this year, only two adult fish have returned.

Prime paddling at the Tariffville Gorge.

Our first stop of the day was Tariffville Gorge, a popular whitewater kayaking run. We made our way down the steep gravel path through the poison ivy and some tiny purple flowers. The river was swollen and rushing from the recent rains, but no paddlers were here today to play in the waves. The Watershed Association hosts annual canoe and kayak races and whitewater rodeos in the Gorge. On other stretches of the Farmington, inner-tubing is very popular.

West of the Gorge is the Barkhamsted reservoir, the biggest reservoir in the watershed. Built in the 1930s, it holds 30 billion gallons. They were spilling water over the dam today because the rains had filled the reservoir too high. Standing in the wind on top of the dam, Kevin pointed down to the far end of the reservoir to where some bald eagles are nesting. This river valley is the only place in the state with nesting bald eagles.

Barkhamsted Reservoir.

“Despite all the growth in the area, we still have a lot of wildlife here. There are more bear sightings than ever, and even some moose. But that could be because the sprawl is pushing them out of their old habitat,” he said.

Facing the wide stretch of glassy water, he told me he has seen old historic records showing that some of his relatives long ago owned land that was flooded by the reservoir.

Looking into the future, he doesn’t think any more big reservoirs like this will be built. He thinks more groundwater wells will be developed, adding, “That’s OK, as long as you make sure you keep good instream flows for the river.”

One big step in protecting the Farmington River came in 1994, with the addition of 14 miles of the west branch to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The designation recognizes the river’s beauty, character, history, and ecological value.

The view from the top of Goodwin Dam — wild and scenic.

Kevin and I drove along West River Road, which parallels the wild and scenic river. State Forest land surrounded us on both sides. We passed a campground and several houses. Some of the yards had thick trees and shrubs growing along the bank to prevent erosion — but other yards were mowed right down to the water. While the wild and scenic river designation calls for certain protections, enforcement is another story.

We stopped at the Riverton General Store for one of the best cheese sandwiches I’ve ever eaten. And, appropriately, I noticed they were selling six-packs of Farmington River Ale.

We ate our sandwiches at a picnic table overlooking the river. I’d have to agree with author Henry James who called the Farmington an “ample, admirable, in every way distinguished” stream.

Tomorrow it’s on to another river — one that was a big inspiration to other writers, including Hawthorne and Thoreau.

Friday, 9 Jun 2000

CONCORD, Mass.

This morning I met Julia Blatt of the Organization for the Assabet River (OAR). I arrived early at her office at Damon Mill, an old brick factory now converted into offices and a fitness club, on the banks of the Assabet.

The Assabet River as it flows past Damon Mill.

I’m glad I was early because it gave me some time to wander around the old mill buildings and raceways and sit under some trees by the river. After all the driving I’ve been doing, it was wonderful to just sit and listen to the river’s gurgles and ripples. The cool, sweet river air was a welcome change after the truck exhaust on the highways! A black-capped chickadee flitted around in the branches over my head and a pigeon swooped back and forth under the little bridge to my left.

The Damon Mill was originally used to collect and forge crude bog iron ore found in the peat bogs that built up where the Assabet River bends. In the early 18th century, it was converted into a grist mill, and then into a textile mill. During the Civil War, the mill was used to produce cloth for Union Army uniforms. In the mid 1900s, the mill was shut down and the building was used to store apples. When the building was renovated for modern offices, they kept a lot of the historic characteristics.

Julia and I only had a few hours together today because she had to run to Boston to take down an Assabet River photo exhibit that has been displayed in the statehouse all week. Julia and her small staff get paid for half-time work, but they all work overtime.

“It’s a great river, a great group of people, and fasci
nating issues. It’s the perfect place to be,” she says.

The Assabet River begins in the town of Westborough and flows for 31 miles. It joins the Sudbury River to form the Concord River, which eventually empties into the Merrimack.

You say you want a revolution?

Most people know the Assabet from the role it played in the Revolutionary War. The Colonial minutemen hid munitions from the British in Barrett’s Farm, just a few yards from the river in the town of Concord. The British came looking for the arms and the colonists met them at North Bridge, where the “shot heard ’round the world” was fired.

What most people don’t know about the river is that it’s suffering from significant water quality problems. There are 140,000 people living in the watershed and it’s one of the fastest growing areas in the state. Interstate 495 cuts through this area and lots of companies are locating here. All of this growth means more wastewater treatment plants (a type of point-source pollution) and more storm-water runoff (non-point-source pollution).

Julia says the biggest problem is phosphorous. Too much phosphorous in the river speeds up the growth of aquatic plants, like duckweed, algae, and water chestnut. These nuisance weeds form a green mat on the river’s surface, crowd out other plants, clog the waterway, and smell bad as they decay. The problem is worst in the summertime.

Sixty to 80 percent of the phosphorous in the river comes from wastewater treatment plants (phosphorous is found in human waste, dishwasher detergent, and industrial by-products). There are seven wastewater treatment plants along the Assabet, a big number for a relatively small, slow-moving river. Storm-water runoff — contaminated with things like lawn fertilizers and pet waste — contributes 20 to 40 percent of the phosphorous.

Julia is also concerned about the amount of water being withdrawn from the river. “The more people who live here, the more water is taken out of the river to meet their needs. And that decreases the dilution of the pollutants and increases the river’s temperature,” she says.

So what is OAR doing about this? Julia and her team of volunteers collect water quality data to use in their efforts to regulate the wastewater treatment plants. They also hold annual river cleanups. “The biggest thing we ever pulled out of the river was a Volkswagen,” she says.

And the group was part of a coalition that was instrumental in securing a National Wild and Scenic River designation for the last four and a half miles of the Assabet. President Clinton announced the designation last April for the “SuAsCo,” so-named because it encompasses the Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord rivers.

The magic marker plant.

Julia took me on a walk to show me what makes the Assabet wild and scenic. We took the trail just off Pine Street Bridge. It was shady and muddy and in some places it was hard to tell where the riverbed ended and the riverbank began. Great blue herons, muskrats, foxes, eels, and otters all live here. Julia pointed out a plant that her son calls the magic marker plant — if you break the stem in half, the inside is yellow and you can write on your hand with it.

She told me, “A couple of years ago, some people said, ‘Why are you bothering? The river is too polluted, too far gone.’ But they’re not saying that anymore. We’ve made real progress. Everyone is talking about the river. It’s a real amenity for the people who live here.”

A street sign in Concord.

Writers Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson were all inspired by the rivers in this area. Thoreau spent a lot of time walking along and wading in the Assabet. He wrote, “A more lovely stream than this … has never flowed on earth, — nowhere, indeed, except to lave the interior of a poet’s imagination.”

Tomorrow, I’ll drive north to meet Steve Brooke, the director of American Rivers’ Maine field office. Cross your fingers for no traffic! Free-flowing things are good: free-flowing rivers, free-flowing traffic …

[Editor's note: You can continue following Amy's travels on the <a href="http://grist.org/comments/dispatches/2000/06/06/souers-americanrivers/American Rivers website.]