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The exclusive patrol area of the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper is all sub-watersheds of the lower Susquehanna River whose flows enter south of Selinsgrove, PA. This area includes the following major sub-watersheds of the Susquehanna River:

  • Chickies Creek (PA)

  • Clark-Paxton Creeks (PA)

  • Codorus Creek (PA)

  • Conestoga River (PA)

  • Conewago Creek (east and west) (PA)

  • Conodoguinet Creek (PA)

  • Deer Creek (MD, PA)

  • Kreutz-Muddy Creeks (PA)

  • Mahanoy Creek (PA)

  • Mahantango Creek (PA)

  • Middle Creek (PA)

  • Octoraro Creek (MD, PA)

  • Pequea Creek (PA)

  • Sherman Creek (PA)

  • Swatara Creek (PA)

  • Tuscarora-Buffalo Creeks (PA)

  • Wiconisco Creek (PA)

  • Yellow Breeches (PA)

Watershed Exclusive Patrol Area

The Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper also patrols the Juniata watershed in addition to the exclusive territory. This Pennsylvania sub-watershed of the Susquehanna includes:

  • Aughwick Creek

  • Blacklog Creek

  • Bobs Creek

  • Brush Creek

  • Buffalo Creek

  • Clover Creek

  • Dunning Creek

  • Frankstown Branch

  • Honey Creek

  • Juniata River

  • Kishacoquillas Creek

  • Little Juniata River

  • Raystown Branch

  • Standing Stone Creek

  • Tuscarora Creek

 

The Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper protects all waterways including unnamed tributaries in the lower Susquehanna River watershed from Selinsgrove, PA to the Chesapeake Bay at Havre De Grace, MD. This territory is roughly 8,527 square miles.

Extra Territorial Patrol Area

Understanding today’s watershed issues requires knowing where we’ve been. Even prior to the retreat of the Wisconsin Glacier that covered the Upper Susquehanna until around 10,000 B.C., the Susquehanna Valley was inhabited by man. Nomadic foragers, hunters and gatherers traveled up and down the Susquehanna, by canoe and by trail. Semi-permanent settlements began to appear along the waterways around 1200 B.C. At the time of the European arrival, the Susquehanna was peopled mostly by the Susquehannock and Seneca tribes.

Although there are rumors of Spanish pirates looking for gold in the Susquehanna during the 16th century, the first European known to have entered the southernmost regions of the Susquehanna was Captain John Smith in 1608. Shortly thereafter, in 1614, Dutch traders reached the Susquehanna, and by 1615 the Frenchman Etienne Brule had traveled the length of the Susquehanna from New York to the Chesapeake Bay. From this time until about 1720 the Susquehanna was known as an area for trading with Native Americans and as a barrier to settlement in the west.

By the 1730’s tributaries of the Susquehanna were being used as sources of water and power for tanneries, grain mills, and gunpowder mills. Pollution from tanneries and the clearing of land were some of the first sources of man-made pollution in the Susquehanna. By the end of the 18th century iron furnaces, lumber operations, and farmers were tapping into the natural resources of the lower Susquehanna watershed. To transport these commodities numerous canals were built to make the otherwise un-navigable river into a transportation system.

The 19th century brought the industrial revolution to the Susquehanna Valley. Coal mining, land clearing, paper mills, slaughterhouses, and domestic waste made the waters unusable for domestic purposes. Many epidemics broke out from use of this polluted waterbody.

By the 20th century, man seemed to have given up on the waterways, and most rivers became waste disposal systems for metals, coal tar, VOC’s, railroad refuse, human refuse, and many other pollutants. Flooding in the late 19th and early 20th century brought the US Army Corps of Engineers in to protect communities by replacing natural channels with large, unnatural channels and levies that degraded water quality even further. During this period some concerned citizens emerged and tried to take action, but to little avail.

The 20th century also brought the giant dams, coal-burning power plants, nuclear plants, and incinerators to the lower Susquehanna valley, creating barriers to fish migration, raising the temperature of the river, changing the aesthetics, and reducing the water quality.

Awareness in the 1960’s and 1970’s brought numerous watershed groups into existence. Most of these had limited success in raising public consciousness, and by the 1980’s many waterways were severely impaired and the condition of the Chesapeake Bay was dire. This brought into existence larger conservation groups like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Their work has been tremendous, and water quality has not worsened much since then, but it has not gotten better either.

The millennial decades brought new impacts such as:

  • over-development and poor land use planning,

  • rise of the industrial factory farm,

  • the production of vast quantities of byproduct industrial wastes, and

  • simultaneous efforts to use such contaminated materials as ‘beneficial reuse’ fill and effluent.

 
Science continually teaches us more about how to minimize our impacts on the intricately balanced relationships within and around our waterways. Our status quo continues to threaten clean water and the work that has been done to improve and protect the waterways of the lower Susquehanna valley and Chesapeake Bay. There are solutions out there, but it will take focus and commitment to assure proper stewardship of our home.

Watershed History
Watershed Geography and Pollution
The Susquehanna River watershed is the largest watershed in the United States that drains into the Atlantic Ocean, and is the largest east of the Mississippi.
 
  • 27,500 square miles in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland
  • 43% of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed’s 64,000 square miles
  • 46% of the state of Pennsylvania, 20,900 square miles
  • 13% of New York, 6,300 square miles
  • less than 1% of Maryland with 300 square miles
The quality and quantity of waters from the Susquehanna and its tributaries directly affect the Bay’s health and productivity. Over 90% of the Upper Chesapeake Bay’s freshwater comes from the Susquehanna, and it provides over 50% of the total volume of the Bay. Every day, the Susquehanna adds 22-25 billion gallons of water containing pollutants to Chesapeake Bay. Every drop passes through the lower Susquehanna sub-basin.

The focus of the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper program is the lower Susquehanna and Juniata sub-basins.
 
  • 8,527 square miles, or roughly one third of the total Susquehanna Watershed.
  • 54% of the total watershed population, or 2.5 million of the 4.5 million people in the watershed.
  • Harrisburg, Lancaster, York, Lebanon, Altoona, Carlisle and Lewistown all grew along the tributaries of the Lower Susquehanna.
  • Tributaries: Juniata River, Little Juniata, Codorus, Conestoga, Conodoguinet, Swatara, Conewago, and Sherman’s Creeks.
 
Today, the majority of agriculture, industry, overdevelopment, and water flow impairments in the Susquehanna watershed are in these two southern sub-basins.

In 2005, American Rivers named the Susquehanna River America’s Most Endangered River. Many of the causes for this designation – combined sewage overflows, rampant agricultural pollution, rapid deforestation and lost farmlands – are found to the greatest degree in the Lower Susquehanna and Juniata watersheds.

In 2011, American Rivers named the Susquehanna River America’s Most Endangered River for a second time. This dubious ‘honor’ was applied due to the rush to develop shale gas reserves with limited consideration of impacts to clean water, rivers, and community health. Today’s natural gas status quo comes with a price tag, and the price – dirty water and a squandered future – is more than we can afford.
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Watershed Information

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