Overpeck Creek

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Overpeck Creek is a tributary of the Hackensack River, approximately 8 miles (13 km) long, in Bergen County in northern New Jersey in the United States. The upper creek flows through suburban communities west of New York City. The lower broad mouth of the creek is part of the extended tidal estuary of the lower Hackensack and of the adjacent wetland region known as the New Jersey Meadowlands.^[1]

The creek rises in Tenafly, on the west side of the Palisades, approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) from the Hudson River. It flows south-southwest through Englewood, past Teaneck, Palisades Park, and Leonia, where it flows past the Overpeck County Park. It joins the Hackensack on the south side of Ridgefield Park.

In colonial times, the creek was called "Tantaqua" and was the site of a Lenape village. The creek lay along the main land route west of the Hudson and provided a consistently difficult barrier for transportation in the area until the construction of modern roads and bridges in the 19th century.

Like the other tributaries of the Hackensack in the Meadowlands, the creek has suffered from severe pollution in the 20th century during the era of heavy industrialization. During the 1950s, tide gates were installed on the creek that largely cut off the tidal flow into the surrounding wetlands. The restoration of the surrounding wetlands has been an ongoing project of several state and private agencies.