Trash Hunting on Hendricks Is.

Wally Jenness looks at canoe buried in flotsam on Hendricks Is

June 9, 2006

The Riegelsville gauge read just under 6 feet, about a foot higher than the median daily flow and much higher than it has been in previous years when we experienced early drought conditions.

I am taking representatives from the Bucks County Native American Alliance to Hendricks Island to let them see the enormity of doing a river cleanup. They approached the Delaware River Greenway Partnership, an organization that has sponsored several river cleanups under the banner of Project River Bright.

The April 2005 flood (number six all time) deposited untold tons of trash scattered on the upper end of the island. Most of the trash is interspersed with tree trunks, limbs, woody debris in flotsam piles that are over twenty feet high -- one such pile is about 150 yards long and 30 yards wide. Plastic, metal and glass containers, propane tanks, household items. The flood swept out the contents of many river rat cottages, garrages, and back yards.

A cleanup of Hendricks Island would be a multi-year effort. There is more trash strewn about that island any other place along the entire non-tidal river.