Berrys Creek
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Berrys Creek (sometimes referred to as Berry's Creek or Berry Creek) is a tributary of the Hackensack River in the New Jersey Meadowlands in Bergen County, New Jersey.
The creek, named for Major John Berry (naval officer), an early British settler and briefly Governor of New Jersey, is largely a tidal estuary, along with the Hackensack River. It rises at Riser Ditch in Teterboro, some of which is within the bounds of Teterboro Airport. The creek then winds through Moonachie and Carlstadt. In East Rutherford, the creek forms the western boundary of the Meadowlands Sports Complex.
At Route 3, the Berry's Creek Canal runs directly to the Hackensack River, entirely in East Rutherford, while the creek itself crosses into Rutherford and then forms the boundary between Rutherford and Lyndhurst until it reaches the Hackensack, which forms the boundary between Bergen and Hudson counties.
The creek has been measured as having the highest concentration of mercury of any fresh-water sediment in the world, the result of the discharge of 268 tons of mercury-contaminated toxic waste into the creek between 1929 and 1974. [1] The creek is designated a Superfund site.
Berry's Creek harbors the last remaining Northern Harrier nest site in the Meadowlands. It is heavily used by wintering raptors.