page_title: Passaic River
section_title: Course
hierarchical_section_title: Passaic River / Course
caption_attribution_description: English: The Passaic River between Summit and Chatham, New Jersey, in autumn 2011.
context_page_description: The Passaic River is a river, approximately 80 mi long, in northern New Jersey in the United States. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey, called the Great Swamp, draining much of the northern portion of the state through its tributaries. In its lower portion, it flows through the most urbanized and industrialized areas of the state, including along downtown Newark. The lower river suffered from severe pollution and industrial abandonment in the 20th century.
  In April 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a $1.7 billion plan to remove 4.3 million cubic yards of toxic mud from the bottom of lower eight miles of the river. It is considered one of the most polluted stretches of water in the nation and the project one of the largest clean-ups ever undertaken.
context_section_description: The Passaic rises in the center of Mendham, in southern Morris County. It begins between Spring Hill Road and Hardscrabble Road, travelling northeast and crossing Corey Lane before entering the Buck Hill Tract Natural Area. At this point the river begins to generally flow south, through Morristown National Historical Park, and forms the boundary between Morris and Somerset counties. In its current path, it passes through the southeast edge and drains Lord Stirling Park then along the western edge of the Great Swamp, which it drains through several small tributaries including Black Brook. The river passes through a gorge in Millington and then turns abruptly northeast, flowing through the valley between Long Hill to the west and the Second Watchung Mountain to the east.
  It forms the boundary between Morris and Union counties as it passes Berkeley Heights, New Providence, and Summit. Near Chatham it turns north, forming the boundary between Morris and Essex counties. It passes Livingston and Fairfield, where it flows through the Hatfield Swamp and is joined by the Rockaway River just after the Whippany River runs into it. Southwest of Lincoln Park it passes through the Great Piece Meadows, where it turns abruptly eastward and is joined at Two Bridges (two bridges road) by its major tributary, the Pompton River, then meandering through Little Falls, New Jersey as it drops over a fall, across some rapids, and under Passaic County Route 646 and an abandoned railroad trestle.
  The river flows northeast into the city of Paterson, where it drops over the Great Falls of the Passaic.  On the north end of Paterson, it turns abruptly south, flowing between Paterson and Clifton on the west and Hawthorne, Fair Lawn, Elmwood Park, Garfield on the east, next through the city of Clifton.  At Elmwood Park it begins to form Dundee Lake, created by the Dundee Dam built in 1845.  The river becomes navigable two and a half miles downstream of the Dundee Dam at the Eighth Street/Locust Ave Bridge in Wallington where the dredged Wallington Reach channel begins.   Proceeding beyond the Wallington Reach, the river remains navigable via a series of maintained channels to its final destination, Newark Bay.  It passes Passaic, Clifton again, then Nutley and Belleville on the west; it flows past Rutherford, Lyndhurst and North Arlington to the east.
  In its lowest reaches, it flows along the northeast portion of the city of Newark on the west, passing Kearny, East Newark, and Harrison, New Jersey on the eastern bank. Near downtown Newark it makes an abrupt easterly bend, then south around Ironbound, joining the Hackensack River at the northern end of Newark Bay, a back bay of New York Harbor.
caption: Flowing between Summit and Chatham.
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