Bronx River

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The Bronx River is a river, approximately 24 mile (38 km) long, in southeast New York in the United States.

It rises in the Kensico Reservoir, in Westchester County north of New York City. It flows south past White Plains, then south-southwest through the northern suburbs, passing Edgemont, Tuckahoe and Bronxville. It divides Yonkers from Mount Vernon, and flows into the northern end of the Bronx, southward through Bronx Park and through urbanized areas of the Bronx. It empties into the East River, a tidal strait connected to Long Island Sound, between the Soundview and Hunts Point neighborhoods.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the river became a natural sewer due to the industrial waste that was being poured into it every day. An early mill on the indistrial river was the Lorilland Tobacco Mill, preserved in the grounds of the Bronx Zoo. Recently action has been taken by different environmental groups, including the Bronx River Alliance^[1], to return the river to its original state as a clean waterway. The River became a pet project of U.S. Representative José Serrano, who secured US$14.6 million in federal funding to support the rehabilitation of the waterway, into which some Westchester towns continued to discharge raw sewage in storm drain overflow as late as 2006; under a 28 November 2006 agreement the municipalities of Scarsdale, White Plains, Mount Vernon and Greenburgh agreed to stop dumping sewage in the Bronx River by 1 May 2007. Herring were released in the river's headwaters in 2006.

Along much of its length in Westchester County and the northern Bronx it is paralleled by the Bronx River Parkway, and its associated bicycle path from Bronxville to the Kensico Dam plaza. A project, the Bronx River Greenway proposes a unified management plan for the narrow ribbon of riverside green spaces in the eight-mile stretch of river that passes through Westchester County and The Bronx, as part of the East Coast Greenway.

In the southern Bronx, it has become a popular destination for urban canoeing in New York City.

The Bronx River is also known as the "Aquahung", a name used by Native Americans in the area before the arrival of European colonists.

The Bronx River also bisects the Bronx Zoo. A tram built in the late 20th century takes Zoo customers over the river to an exhibit of Asian animals on the left bank, with a narration presenting the river as the Irrawaddy.

In February 2007 biologists with the Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the Zoo, spotted a beaver in the river, for the first time in over two hundred years. "There has not been a sighting of a beaver lodge or a beaver in New York City for over 200 years. It sounds fantastic, but one of the messages that comes out of this is if you give wildlife a chance it will come back," said John Calvelli, a spokesman for the Society.^[2]

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[edit] Notes

^ The Bronx River Alliance.
^ Daniel Trotta, "Beaver returns to New York City after 200 years". Beaver pelts provided the city's first boom: the 7,246 beaver pelts purchased by the Dutch in 1626 swelled by 1671 to more than 80,000 pelts a year, following which the stocks rapidly depleted.