Schuylkill River cleanup researchers seeking help

[jeff of pa]

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network is seeking people who helped clean up the Schuylkill River in the '40s and '50s.



The mid-century cleanup efforts were particularly notable because of the scope - the project covered about 130 miles from the river mouth in Philadelphia to the headwaters above Tuscarora - as well as the poor condition of the Schuylkill River, Towne said.

Newspaper and magazine articles of the time referred to the river, whose waters contained untreated sewage and coal sediment, as "America's dirtiest river."

Towne said the network is planning to collect its research in the form of a book, and may also give presentations on its results.

http://www.republicanherald.com/news/schuylkill-river-cleanup-researchers-seeking-help-1.513119

 

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[Don in SJ]

Jeff, my late Father used to take me Pheasant hunting just north of Reading, along the river and the fields we hunted were covered in vast expanses of coal silt that I assume was dredged from the river. The time frame I hunted those "fields" was around 1960 or so and evidently it was not too many years after they did the section north of Reading. There were nice borders between each field and for some reason the Pheasants liked to hide in them, despite the mostly barren adjoining fields.

Is there any mention of the cleanup in any of "The Passing Scene" by Meiser? I only have 5 of the Volumes and do not think there is any mention of it in the ones I have.

Sure does bring back memories of seeing the coal silt that used to line the banks of the Schuylkill River for me. What a difference, the river today looks pretty darn good, at least in the Reading area.

Don

 

[jeff of pa]

Mike in Berks has all the Passing Scene 's

I'll see what he Knows.

 

[P.B. and Dylan]

Although the cleanup took place before my time I have spent a lot of time researching this. I know of at least four silt/desilting basins in my area. I have done some metal detecting in them (nothing good yet...real trashy). I wasn't able to find a whole lot of information on the project but maybe what I do know will be a help to the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. Thanks for the info Jeff.

Paul

 

[jeff of pa]

coal Silt is Very hard to penitrate with the average detector.

Not sure IF any really outshine in it.

It's alot like Black sand

 

[Mike in Berks]

Well, Jeff i looked at the index 1 to 10 Passing Scene and checked
Vol. 3, 6, 7, and 10 There weren't any photo's on dredging. There
are a lot of topics on the Schuylkill Navigation Co. i'll check out
I do remember my parents took us to Bern Bridge in my early
teens to swim and the river was pure black. it stuck to you lol
And in the early 90's me and a guy i worked with floated from
Hamburg to Shoemakersville in my raft. It was a very dry year and
the river was very low and moving was slow. But, i do remember
the clumps of sewage waste all aound us. Then, in early 2000 i
used to sit above Bern Bridge and the water was crystal clear and
i'd watch the carp swim upstream So, it has improved since then.
I did some searching on the web last night and found out there was
a major flood in 1942. And the dredging project started in 1947 and
ended in 1954. They had 26 80 - 150 acre basins to hold the dredged
coal Phoenixville, and Kernsville Basin (Hamburg) were 2 of them.
>> There were 120 workers and 4 engineering companys involved <<
I think the flood of 1972(Agnes) helped clean out the coal that remained ?
There is a lot of information on the web. One i found is this .....

http://www.pottsmerc.com/articles/2009/08/09/news/srv0000006043094.txt

A few years ago i got permission to search a field along the river.
It was close to a place they used to cross the river before the bridges
were built. At the end of the field a creek connected to the Schuylkill.
On the banks of the creek it showed how much coal was in that field.
It was at least 2 - 3 feet deep I gave up after seeing that

There's lots of history "buried" in and along that river for sure.