C. Campbell_Week 3_The Allegheny River: A Story of My Backyard

The Allegheny River: A Story of My Backyard

This week I headed out my back door and down to the Allegheny River banks! I am fortunate to live not in the floodplain of the Allegheny River, but just overlooking it, making for many majestic sights. These two photos were taken one foggy morning from our back deck...I am spoiled with my view I admit. BUT it has also given me great appreciation for the many gifts and strengths of our river system. My family and I spend significant time on the rivers living in Pittsburgh, so this was a nice opportunity to learn more about my backyard! 

 In 2018, rains poured over our little community creating a discharge of monumental proportions, pouring the river over its levees onto the flood plains. The local community main street was devastated and tragically some lost their lives. It hit at rush hour so there were maximum people on our roadways. It seems odd that on top of a mountain where Pittsburgh sits, we could experience flooding, but it happened in my lifetime! I might not otherwise have believed it. 

Verona Borough

Interestingly I learned that the Allegheny River is over 300 miles in length. Beginning in north central Pennsylvania and flowing north into southeastern New York, the Allegheny turns again and flows south through southwestern Pennsylvania. It is a tributary to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and eventually helps to deposit sediment into the Gulf of Mexico. In 2017 it was voted River of the Year for its biological diversity, part of which contains the largest deposit of fresh water mussels in the US! It also has over 350 acres of protected islands and 80 miles are designated National Wild and Scenic River offering it greater protection to development than other rivers. 

Our waters used to be more polluted, but the clean water acts passed in the last few decades have contributed to cleaner waters and fresh food supplies bringing the eagles back to our area for the first time in a lifetime! 
Just like its meandering path, the Allegheny River has a meandering past. During the sixteenth century, control of the river was passed back and forth between two local Native tribes, the Shawnee and the Iroquois. Eventually during the French invasion, the Shawnee as the current controlling tribe entered into an alliance with the French to defend against the British incursion. This lead to the French and Indian War in the 1750s. In the early 1760s when the British gained control of the area through the Treaty of Paris, the pressure to open the area to white settlement, experts say, became one of the root causes of the Revolutionary War. 

Harmar Egale's Nest

Finally, as shown in the picture below, the Allegheny River (left) and the Monongahela River (right) join to form the Ohio River. The Ohio River then flows over 980 miles through to Illinois where it joins the Mississippi. All of these great rivers carry sediment through their currents to the edge of the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico. It's so bizarre to think that the pebble I tossed into the river last week on my visit to the river banks might find its way to the Gulf of Mexico next month.