Schoharie Creek is a river in New York that flows north from the foot of Indian Head Mountain in the Catskills through the Schoharie Valley to the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk ...

. It is twice impounded north of Prattsville to create New York City's Schoharie Reservoir and the Blenheim-Gilboa Power Project. During the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Indigenous confederations in North America, confederacy of First Nations in Canada, First Natio ...

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

attacks against the cluster of farms in the valley of the

Cobleskill Creek Cobleskill Creek is a river in Otsego and Schoharie counties in the state of New York. It starts at Pine Mountain west of West Richmondville and flows east-northeast before converging with Schoharie Creek in Central Bridge. The creek flows th ...

tributary was the site of the Cobleskill Massacre (May 1778), virtually depopulating settlements in the southern Mohawk valley. News of this and two other mixed Tory-Indian guerrilla attacks led to an appropriation of funds for the Sullivan Expedition dispatched by General Washington in 1779 to break the threat of Indian raids. The

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing ...

crossed over the creek by an aqueduct at Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site. Two notable bridge collapses have occurred on Schoharie Creek. In 1987, two spans of the

New York State Thruway , direction_a = South , terminus_a = {{Jct, state=NY, I, 95 at the The Bronx, Bronx–Yonkers, New York City line , junction = {{plainlist, * {{jct, state=NY, I, 287, Parkway, Saw Mill, NY, 119 in Elmsford, New York, Elmsford * {{jct, state=NY, ...

collapsed. On August 28, 2011, the covered

Old Blenheim Bridge Old Blenheim Bridge was a wooden covered bridge that spanned Schoharie Creek in North Blenheim, New York, United States. With an open span of , it had the second longest span of any surviving single-span covered bridge in the world. The 1862 B ...

collapsed due to flooding from Hurricane Irene.

Geography

Watershed and tributary streams

Schoharie Creek is part of the drainage system of the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

watershed and a direct tributary of the

. Tributaries of Schoharie Creek, listed from upstream to downstream, include:

East side

Gooseberry Creek Gooseberry Creek flows into Schoharie Creek by Tannersville, New York . References

{{authority control Rivers of New York (state) Rivers of Greene County, New York ...

* Red Kill *

East Kill East Kill, a tributary of Schoharie Creek, flows across the town of Jewett, New York, United States, from its source on Stoppel Point. Ultimately its waters reach the Hudson River via the Mohawk. Since it drains into the Schoharie upstream of ...

* John Chase Brook * Batavia Kill * Hunterfield Creek * Platter Kill * Keyser Kill * Little Schoharie Creek * Stony Brook * Fox Creek *

Bowman Creek Bowman Creek (also known as Bowmans Creek or Bowman's Creek) is a tributary of the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County and Wyoming County, in Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is approximately long and flows through Ross Township and Lake To ...

West side

* Roaring Kill * Cook Brook * West Kill * Little West Kill * Johnson Hollow Brook * Bear Kill * Mine Kill * West Kill * Cole Brook * Panther Creek * Pleasant Valley Creek * Line Creek *

* Cripplebush Creek * Fly Creek * Wilsey Creek * Irish Creek

Watershed

Before European colonization, the watershed was mostly forested with a few small areas cleared by Native Americans for hunting. Early European settlers attempted to farm the land, but soon abandoned it due to the short growing seasons, steep slopes and rocky soil. Between 1800 and the early 1900s, mills, the tanning industry, quarrying for bluestone, logging, railroads, and resorts cleared the Catskills of most of its forest cover. Starting in the early 1900s, these industries began to decline and areas that were previously cleared have grown back into forest. As of 2001, approximately 85% of the Schoharie Creek's watershed has been classified as forested.

Hydrology

Water quality

New York's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) rates the

water quality Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water based on the standards of its usage. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance, generally achieved through tr ...

of Schoharie Creek in different sections. The section from Cobleskill Creek to Pleasant Valley Brook is rated Class C, which is most suitable for fishing, but can also be suitable for primary and secondary contact recreation. Stream flow on the lower Schoharie is significantly influenced by the Schoharie Reservoir. Flow from the reservoir is restricted when the dam is not open, and the lack of flow mostly during the summer increases water temperature, which negatively affects the fishery. Also this section flows through an agricultural valley, which contributes to increased sediment in the creek. This increases streambank erosion and sediment loadings, and during high flows, cause the creek's turbidity to increase. Biological tests were conducted in Fort Hunter in 2001, then in Burtonsville in 2001, and showed non-impacted water quality conditions at both sites.

Discharge

The

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

(USGS) maintains many stream gauges along Schoharie Creek. The first station is east of Lexington in operation since 1999, had a maximum discharge of per second on August 28, 2011, as Hurricane Irene passed through the area, and a minimum discharge of per second on August 21–22, 2002. Another station by Prattsville in operation since 1902, upstream from Schoharie Reservoir, had a maximum discharge of per second on August 28, 2011, with no minimum discharge recorded. Below the Schoharie Reservoir is the station by Gilboa in operation since October 1975, downstream from the Schoharie Reservoir dam, had a maximum discharge of per second on August 28, 2011, and a minimum discharge of per second on many days from June to October 1976, and September 11-13, 1980. Another station by North Blenheim in operation continuously since October 1970, upstream from bridge on State Highway 30 in North Blenheim, had a maximum discharge of per second on August 28, 2011, and a minimum discharge of per second on many days from June to October 1976, and September 11-13, 1980. The station by Breakabeen in operation since July 1975, downstream from Keyser Kill, had a maximum discharge of per second on August 28, 2011, and a minimum discharge of per second on October 14, 1988. USGS Burtonsville Schoharie Creek

Further downstream the station by Middleburgh in operation from July 1927 to September 1939 and since December 2017, slightly downstream of the bridge at intersection of State Highways 30 and 145 in Middleburgh, had a maximum discharge of per second on March 18, 1936, and a minimum discharge of per second on September 1, 1939. Outside the period of record, it had an estimated maximum discharge of per second on August 28, 2011. The station in Schoharie is located upstream from bridge on County Highway 1A has been in operation since December 2017, takes gauge height measurements only. It had a maximum gauge height of on August 14, 2018 and a minimum gage height of on many days between September 22 and October 1 in 2019. The station in Esperance is located by the US Route 20 bridge has been in operation since December 2017, takes gauge height measurements only. It had a maximum gauge height of on April 15, 2019 and a minimum gage height of on July 22, 2018. Outside the period of record, the flood of August 2011 reached a stage of from floodmark. The station in Burtonsville in operation since October 1939, upstream from the mouth, had a maximum discharge of per second on August 29, 2011, and a minimum discharge of per second on September 24–25, 1964.

Turbidity

The USGS station along the creek near Burtonsville, collects turbidity data every 15 minutes. The maximum daily suspended sediment concentrations (SSC) mean was 1460 mg/L on June 14, 2013, and the minimum was 2 mg/L on October 1–2, 2014. On June 14, 2013, the maximum daily suspended sediment discharge was 48,400 tons () on June 14, 2013, and .16 tons () on October 1–2, 2014.

History

In the 18th century, areas of the south (or right bank) side of Mohawk Valley were sparsely settled in the face of the periodically warlike and always militant Iroquois peoples, who, while diminished by European diseases during colonial times still retained ample war powers after the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the st ...

ended in 1763. Reorganized by then as the Six Nations the tribes had conducted internecine war with other powerful eastern tribes until the 1770s, weakening or eliminating the power of the Delaware, the Susquehanna, and Shawnee tribes— affecting Amerindian populations and power both East and West of the Alleghenies as far south as northern Kentucky in the west, and southern Maryland in the east. By the end of the French and Indian War, they were the one remaining group of eastern native peoples that retained sufficient military power to give even the British authorities pause. Consequently, those authorities cultivated ''political arrangements'' with the Iroquois and as a prelude to the revolution, the British Crown acted to block trans-Appalachian settlements before the opening of the American Revolution, one of the lesser known grievances of many held by the settlers. During the Revolution, farms in the valley acted as a breadbasket providing important food supplies to the Colonial forces. The lower Mohawk valley was a scene of uneasy native Amerindian– Colonial Settler contention throughout most of the 18th century until after the

's Sullivan Expedition pacified the region by permanently weakening the Six Nations of the

. That campaign was a direct result of two atrocities in the region: The May 1778

Battle of Cobleskill The Battle of Cobleskill (also known as the Cobleskill massacre) was an American Revolutionary War raid on the frontier settlement of Cobleskill, New York on May 30, 1778. The battle, having taken place in the modern-day hamlet of Warnerville ...

(or Cobleskill Creek Massacre) signaled a new

guerrilla war Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics ...

offensive by mixed troops of Loyalists and members of the four Iroquois tribes allied to the British in 1778. The incursions resulted in three major raids with major loss of life ranging from Southern New York to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

New York State Thruway bridge collapse

Interstate 90 Schoharie Creek Bridge collapsed

On the morning of April 5, 1987, after 30 years of service, two spans of the

bridge over Schoharie Creek near Fort Hunter collapsed. Five vehicles fell into the

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

ed river, resulting in ten deaths. A subsequent investigation of the collapse determined the cause to be

scour Scour may refer to: Hydrodynamic processes * Hydrodynamic scour, the removal of sediment such as sand and silt from around an object * Bridge scour, erosion of soil around at the base of a bridge pier or abutments via the flow of air, ice, or ...

. At the time, the creek was higher and flowing faster than normal due to excessive rains in the area. Twelve hours before the Schoharie Creek Bridge collapsed due to heavy rainfall, the rush of water through the Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped Storage Power Project upstream hit a historic high. To cope with the overload, the dam released water into the Schoharie Creek according to the rate at which it was entering the reservoir from upstream, adding to the load in the creek. The segment of NY 5S near Fort Hunter was reconfigured to carry westbound Thruway traffic while the bridge was rebuilt. The eastbound replacement bridge was completed and fully open to traffic on December 7, 1987, and the westbound replacement bridge was opened on May 21, 1988.

Old Blenheim Bridge

The

, one of the longest and oldest single-span covered bridges in the world, formerly spanned the creek. The bridge was destroyed on August 28, 2011 by flooding resulting from Hurricane Irene.

References

External links

The Collapse of the Schoharie Creek Bridge
{{authority control Rivers of New York (state) Schoharie, New York Tributaries of the Hudson River Rivers of Greene County, New York Rivers of Schoharie County, New York Rivers of Albany County, New York Rivers of Schenectady County, New York Rivers of Montgomery County, New York