If it were not for the Susquehanna River, the Chesapeake Bay would not be what it is today. The bay was formed when glaciers melted and flooded the Susquehanna River Valley 15,000 years ago. The spread of freshwater formed the bay’s wetland and the coastal salt marshes.
The Susquehanna River begins in the Ostego Lake, Cooperstown, New York and flows 444 miles through Pennsylvania until it reaches the Chesapeake Bay at Havre de Grace, Maryland, with the majority of the river in Pennsylvania.
The river is filled with Brook Trout and flows through forested areas. The Susquehannock Indians once lived along the river and first visited by John Smith in 1609 when he was exploring the Chesapeake Bay.
The river flows approximately twenty miles per day pushing eighteen million gallons of water into the bay.
What is Polluting the Susquehanna River?
Coal exploration in the western and northern branch of the Susquehanna was the start of polluting the “Mighty Susquehanna”. At the peak of the anthracite coal mining in 1917 over 100 million tons of coal was mined. The runoff from these mines poisoned the river.
In the late 1960s, the Penn Central Railroad also contributed to poisoning the river at its Enola yard located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The rail yard allowed oil, cleaning solutions, fuel, and other chemicals to run directly into the river. Fish and wildlife began floating in the water and washing up on the shores.
Pennsylvania has been a farming community since the early 1700s. However, farming has become a major contributor to pollution in the Susquehanna. According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) the pollution comes from “erosion and resulting sedimentation of waterways, improper manure and fertilizer management, improper manure storage and unintended effects of pesticides.”
Fixing the Pollution Problem
Much has been done to clean up the Susquehanna River and to prevent it from being polluted any further. Unfortunately, the efforts have not been successful.
In 2005, Governor Ed Rendell initated the Pennsylvania Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy calling for limits on nutrients and sediments in the Susquehanna River, which creates oxygen deprived "dead zones" making it impossible for marine life to survive.
Also implemented was a market-based nutrient trading program to limit pollution. The program allows industries to pay farmers within their watershed to adopt conservation practices in order to reduce pollution caused by them. This is a more economical way to cleanup the water.
If Pennsylvania falls short of meeting the targeted nutrient reductions it will be required to comply with a “Bay-wide plan” that will be enforced by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2011.
Source:
United States Environmental Protection Agency "The Chesapeake Bay Compliance and Enforcement Strategy" Accessed May 2, 2010
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation "Water Quality" Cbf.org Accessed May 3, 2010
Stranhan, Susan Q. Susquehanna, River of Dreams. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University, 1993.
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