page_title: Wallkill River
section_title: Cleanup
hierarchical_section_title: Wallkill River / Cleanup
caption_attribution_description: English: Wallkill River at Wallkill, NY, USA, its waters turned green by an algae bloom in late summer 2016
context_page_description: The Wallkill River, a tributary of the Hudson, drains Lake Mohawk in Sparta, New Jersey, flowing from there generally northeasterly 88.3 miles to Rondout Creek in New York, just downstream of Sturgeon Pool, near Rosendale, with the combined flows reaching the Hudson at Kingston.
  The river is unusual because it flows north between two major south-flowing rivers, the Hudson and the Delaware River. It also has the unusual distinction of being a river that drains into a creek, due to being impounded shortly before the Rondout confluence into a small body of water called Sturgeon Pool near Rifton, and what reaches the Rondout from there is the lesser flow.
context_section_description: There have been several efforts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to clean up the river.
  At the turn of the century, a Wallkill River Task Force was formed, with representatives from both Ulster and Orange counties.  From the 'Acknowledgements' of the "Wallkill River Watershed Conservation and Management Plan":
  "A crucial development in the history of Wallkill Watershed protection efforts was the scheduling of a Wallkill River conference in 1998. Held at Orange County Community College and organized by the Orange County Land Trust (OCLT), this conference could be considered the birth of the Wallkill River Task Force (WRTF) – a ‘project’ of the OCLT. While some focus on this Watershed was already occurring amongst government agencies, the WRTF created a non-governmental group that actively sought the volunteer participation of farmers, business people and other ‘ordinary’ citizens, in addition to government and conservation agency employees, to provide for broad-based leadership in protecting the Wallkill River and its watershed lands."
  One result of that Task Force's work was the drafting of a conservation and management plan.  Riverkeeper's water-quality program has been testing samples at many places along the river with the help of citizen-scientists.
  In late summer 2016, the Wallkill River Watershed Alliance, along with Riverkeeper, documented a potentially toxic large blue-green algae bloom, prompting the two groups to warn that could be harmful to people, dogs or other pets. After the samples were taken from the River, New York's Department of Environmental Conservation confirmed a Harmful Algae bloom with High Levels of Toxins. Riverkeeper responded by calling on government officials to define the causes of the algae.
caption: The 2016 algae bloom, seen at Wallkill
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