Passaic River - WikiHQ

The Passaic River ( or ) is a river, approximately long, in northern New Jersey. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey, called the Great Swamp, draining much of the northern portion of the state through its tributaries.

In its lower (southern) portion, it flows through the most urbanized and industrialized areas of the state, including along Downtown Newark. The lower river suffered from severe pollution and industrial abandonment in the 20th century.

In April 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a $1.7 billion plan to remove of toxic mud from the bottom of lower of the river. It is considered one of the most polluted stretches of water in the nation, and the project is one of the largest toxic cleanups ever undertaken in the nation.

Course

thumb|A spring located at approximately 40.761025,-74.581318 (visible in the lower right of the photo) located near the sharp bend in Spring Hill Road begins a small stream that flows roughly 1000 feet east northeast into Dubourg Pond. The stream is visible to the left of the spring flowing down into a grove of trees at the upper left of the photo. This spring likely represents the true headwater of the Passaic River.

The Passaic River rises in the center of Mendham, in southern Morris County. According to Google Maps the river begins at Dubourg Pond located on private land between Spring Hill Road and Hardscrabble Road. This pond is fed by a very small stream that begins from a spring located approximately 1000 feet south west of the pond at the bend in Spring Hill Road. This spring is the likely true headwater of the Passaic River. Leaving Dubourg Pond the river travels northeast and crosses Corey Lane before entering the Buck Hill Tract Natural Area. However At this point, the river begins to generally flow south, through Morristown National Historical Park, and forms the boundary between Morris and Somerset counties. In its current path, it passes through the southeast edge and drains Lord Stirling Park then along the western edge of the Great Swamp, which it drains through several small tributaries including Black Brook. The river passes through a gorge in Millington and then turns abruptly northeast, flowing through the valley between Long Hill to the west and the Second Watchung Mountain to the east.

It forms the boundary between Morris and Union counties as it passes Berkeley Heights, New Providence, and Summit. Near Chatham it turns north, forming the boundary between Morris and Essex counties. It passes Livingston and Fairfield, where it flows through the Hatfield Swamp and is joined by the Rockaway River just after the Rockaway is joined by its own tributary, the Whippany River. Southwest of Lincoln Park it passes through the Great Piece Meadows, where it turns abruptly eastward and is joined at Two Bridges by its major tributary, the Pompton River, then meandering through Little Falls, New Jersey as it drops over a fall, across some rapids, and under Passaic County Route 646 and an abandoned railroad trestle.

thumb|right|Flowing between [[Summit, New Jersey|Summit and Chatham]]

The river flows northeast into the city of Paterson, where it drops over the Great Falls of the Passaic. On the north end of Paterson, it turns abruptly south, flowing between Paterson and Clifton on the west and Hawthorne, Fair Lawn, Elmwood Park, Garfield on the east, next through the city of Clifton. At Elmwood Park it begins to form Dundee Lake, created by the Dundee Dam built in 1845. The river becomes navigable downstream of the Dundee Dam at the Eighth Street/Locust Ave Bridge in Wallington where the dredged Wallington Reach channel begins. Proceeding beyond the Wallington Reach, the river remains navigable via a series of maintained channels to its final destination, Newark Bay. It passes Passaic, Clifton again, then Nutley and Belleville on the west; it flows past Rutherford, Lyndhurst, and North Arlington to the east.

In its lowest reaches, it flows along the northeast portion of the city of Newark on the west, passing Kearny, East Newark, and Harrison on the eastern bank. Near downtown Newark it makes an abrupt easterly bend, then south around Ironbound, joining the Hackensack River at the northern end of Newark Bay, a back bay of New York Harbor.

History

Geology

The Passaic River formed as a result of drainage from a massive proglacial lake that formed in North Jersey at the end of the last ice age, approximately 13,000 years ago. That prehistoric lake is now known as Glacial Lake Passaic and was centered in the present lowland swamps of Morris County, forming because of a blockage of the normal drainage path. Eventually, the lake level rose high enough that the water flowed out of a new outlet. The Passaic River found a new path to the ocean via the Millington Gorge and the Paterson Falls as the glacier that covered the area retreated northward and the lake drained. As a result, the river as we now know it was born.

Native American weirs

Prior to European colonialization along the Passaic in the late 17th century, the valley was the territory of the Lenape groups now known as the Acquackanonk and Hackensack, who used the river for fishing. To that end they built weirs, or overflow dams, to create pools and where the fish could be trapped. Many of these archeological sites are still present and, in some cases, in good condition.

Economic development

The river was highly significant in the early industrial development of New Jersey. It provided a navigable route connected by canals to the Delaware River starting in the late 18th century. It also was an early source of hydropower at the Great Falls of the Passaic in Paterson, resulting in the early emergence of the area as the center of industrial mills.

Pollution

Much of the lower river suffered severe pollution during the 19th and 20th centuries because of industrial waste discharges to the river and improper waste disposal practices on adjacent land. Although the health of the river has improved due to implementation of the 1972 Clean Water Act and other environmental legislation, and the decline of industry along the river, it still suffers from substantial degradation of water quality. The sediment at the mouth of the river near Newark Bay remains contaminated by pollutants such as dioxin. The dioxin was generated principally by the Diamond Shamrock Chemical Plant in Newark, as a waste product resulting from the production of the Agent Orange defoliation chemical used during the Vietnam War. The cleanup of the dioxin contamination on the bottom of the river is the subject of a major environmental lawsuit regarding the responsibility for the cleanup. In 2008, the EPA reached a settlement with Occidental Chemical Corporation and Tierra Solutions Inc. to clean a portion of the polluted river. A New Jersey Superior Court judge, ruling in July and September 2011, stated that Occidental and Maxus Exergy Corporation (a subsidiary of YPF) are liable for remediation in other portions of the river. In 2013, several corporate defendants agreed to pay the State of New Jersey $130 million for ecological damages related to Passaic River pollution. However, it is unclear as to whether the state will actually use this money for clean-up efforts.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) issued notices in 2009 banning commercial fishing and advising the general public that fish caught in the tidal Passaic River (from Dundee Dam to the mouth at Newark Bay) should not be eaten. The fish consumption advisories remain in effect as of 2020.

In April 2014, EPA announced a $1.7 billion plan to remove of toxic mud from the bottom of lower of the river. It is considered one of the most polluted stretches of water in the nation and one of the biggest clean-ups project ever undertaken. In January 2011 a report was issued, mentioning the 2010 flood, and the result was for municipalities to change their master plans and change local flood damage prevention ordinances, which would include such things as elevating structures, and to stop expansion into flood zones. The areas considered prone to continual flooding are Acid Brook, Buttermilk Falls, Haycock Brook, Mahwah River, Masonicus Brook, Packanack Brook, Pequannock River, Plog Brook, Pompton River, Ramapo River, Third River, Wanaque River, and Wolf Creek. On August 30, 2011 there was another flood with a crest. The flood control issue had been considered as far back as 1870 and there were studies in 1939, 1948, 1962, 1969, 1972, 1973, 1987, and 1995 with minimum results from report suggestions.

In the arts and literature

A poem about the river was written by John Alleyne Macnab in 1890, and put to music by Fountains of Wayne.

The river hosted a group of Inuit plantation workers on the run in the 2004 short story, "From Out of the River", by beat laureate Spencer Hash.

The river, and especially its Great Falls, plays a large part in William Carlos Williams's epic poem Paterson.

From 2006 to 2008, writer Wheeler Antabanez traveled the Passaic River and its shores, chronicling his adventures in a special issue of Weird NJ magazine. Nightshade on the Passaic was released as a special issue of the magazine and quickly became its best-selling issue, confirming readers' interest in stories involving the Passaic River. Antabanez intentionally did not want the special issue to be a history lesson of New Jersey or the river but instead wanted it to be a Huckleberry Finn-style adventure story.

In his canoe, Nightshade, Antabanez visits the most dangerous parts of the Passaic, along with several of the abandoned buildings and factories that relied on the Passaic years ago. In addition to the river and the decaying structures that surround it, he also researched murders that involved the Passaic River, including the horrific case of Jonathan Zarate, who attempted to dump the mutilated body of his 16-year-old neighbor in the river but was thwarted by a police officer who happened to pass by at the time.

Tributaries

250px|right|thumb|[[Weasel Brook, one of the Passaic River's tributaries, running alongside Clifton Public School#17; the school was built on the site of Little Weasel Brook Park, a former Passaic County park sold to the city to build the school]]

(As encountered traveling upstream to its source):

First River (a.k.a. Mill Brook)
Second River or Watsessing River
Third River or Yanticaw River
McDonalds Brook (originally Mineral Spring Brook)
Weasel Brook
Saddle River
Ho-Ho-Kus Brook
Fleischer Brook
Lyncrest Brook
Little Diamond Brook

150px|right|thumb|Tributaries of the Passaic River's North Bend

Diamond Brook
Stevenson Brook
Goffle Brook
Deep Voll Brook
Molly Ann Brook
Spring Brook
Squaw Brook
Slippery Rock Brook
Peckman River
Singac Brook
Deepavaal Brook
Pompton River
Pequannock River
Wanaque River
Ramapo River
Mahwah River
Rockaway River
Whippany River
Foulerton's Brook
Spring Garden Brook
Slough Brook

thumb|250px|right|Source of the Passaic, in Mendham

Canoe Brook
Salt Brook
Cory's Brook
Dead River
Black Brook
Great Brook
Loantaka Brook
Primrose Brook
Penns Brook
Indian Grove Brook
Naakpunkt Brook
Taylor Brook

Crossings

List of crossings of the Lower Passaic River
List of crossings of the Upper Passaic River

References

External links

Lower Passaic River Restoration Project
Passaic River Coalition
Passaic River Boat Club
Passaic River Institute, Montclair State University
North Jersey District Water Supply Commission
Delaware and Hudson Canoe and Kayak Club: Passaic River- Source to Mouth
My Passaic River Kayak Trip - 90 Miles of Fun in Northern New Jersey - June 2000 - by Steve Garufi
Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
Great Swamp Watershed Association - The Passaic River WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE Affiliate
U.S. Geological Survey: NJ stream gaging stations
Passaic River Rowing Association
Nereid Boat Club
(Water-Supply and Irrigation Paper No. 92)