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The Delaware: A National Treasure
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Delaware, the longest un-dammed river east of the Mississippi,
is as steeped in history as it is diverse in nature. It serves
as a major source of water for big cities and heavy industry,
yet supports a world-class trout fishery. Seventeen million
people rely on the Delaware River system for water, but the
river itself is small, draining only four-tenths of one percent
of the total continental U.S. land area. Over 170 miles of the
282-mile long river have been included in the National
Wild and Scenic Rivers System, a testament to the remarkable
improvement in its water quality.
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has visited the river and so have literary giants. Walt Whitman
discovered poetry in its commerce, describing the steam tugs
that plied it as "saucy little bullpups of the current."
Zane Grey wrote about the river before heading west. William
Penn signed a treaty with the Indians on its banks. George Washington
and his troops rowed across it, en route to a decisive victory
over the British Crown. During the Civil War, more than 12,000
Confederate soldiers were imprisoned on Pea Patch Island, just
down river of New Castle, Del. In 1915, to meet the war demand,
the world's largest shipyard was built on Hog Island, offshore
of Philadelphia. Upstream the river flows beneath the Delaware
Aqueduct, built by engineer John Roebling who designed the fabled
Brooklyn Bridge. The aqueduct served as a watery passage for
mule-pulled canal boats. The river empties into the Delaware
Bay, which washes by old whaling towns.
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Kuralt may have had the Delaware in mind when he wrote "I
started out thinking of America as highways and state lines.
As I got to know it better I began to think of it as rivers.
America is a great story, and there is a river on every page
of it." But it was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes who perhaps best captured the river's essence. In a 1931
decision involving the sharing of the Delaware's waters he wrote,
"A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure."
The information on this page was received from the Delaware River
Basin Commission's website at:http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/
contact them for more information on the Delaware, or contact
the Delaware River Greenway Partnership at (908) 996-0230.
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