Riverfront Park: Good News, Bad News, and REALLY Bad News

Testing river water

It’s been a month since Public Works removed most of the vegetation from the riverbank at Riverfront Park. Yesterday I went there to help volunteers test our river water for pollutants and other water health factors. Remember, this river provides our drinking water.

The results:  Nitrate levels (caused by runoff that contains fertilizer) were slightly better than on Earth Day.  PH levels were a tad on the alkaline side but not far from optimum (changes in pH can promote the growth of nasty invasive vegetation in the river). The bad news is that phosphate levels were worse (caused by runoff containing waste—for instance, from the goose droppings along the bank, the many dogs people bring to the park to relieve themselves, and all the backyards uphill that contain dog poop, etc.)

If you read my first blog on the riverbank about 3 weeks ago, you’ll remember how important the riparian zone (riverbank) vegetation is for filtering pollutants like phosphates, to keep them out of our drinking water.

The good news is that some of the vegetation is beginning to grow back, especially where the blue sediment barrier is, because the barrier discourages people from stepping over it and trampling the plants. (The photo shows mainly broadleaf plantain—an introduced species that’s been in North America long enough to be considered native.) If left alone, the vegetation will come back on its own, though replacing some of the more recent invasive species with native shrubs and flowers is best.

However, where there’s no barrier, little growth is taking place and the soil is quickly eroding around the tree roots.

At the end of the parking lot, where the lot is closest to the water, erosion is happening so fast that no vegetation at all is visible and almost all the top soil is gone. What’s underneath is what looks like old construction fill—cement blocks, cement dust in the soil, etc. Nothing will grow there. Meanwhile, the river keeps getting closer to the asphalt.

Where the river is closest to the lot

When I tried to ask some of our council folks what the plans are for Riverfront Park, they directed me to the Norristown.org. It took me a while but I found the plan at this link.

What the plan shows is no riparian zone at all for the area in question (which goes against US, PA and Montgomery County guidelines/ regulations for riparian zones). The bank appears to be all paved (it's described as "stone protection/stone seating/bank fishing"), with large boulders along the water’s edge. Less trees than we have now. Nothing to filter pollution, nothing to prevent erosion from behind or during floods, nothing to help slow flood waters, no habitat for wildlife (which includes fish—who get much of their shelter and food from overhanging trees and nutrients that wash into the river from vegetation on land or from whatever lives in the muddy shallows (which will be covered with boulders)). The entire natural eco-system in this area would be completely destroyed. More pollution in the river, leading not only to more difficulty cleaning our drinking water, but to the growth of more invasive weeds in the river, preventing boating.

Do we prefer bottle caps instead of plants?

Even if all that wasn’t a problem, think about the added heat that less trees/vegetation and more stone would bring to the park. Honestly, there’s too much paving there on a hot summer day now as it is, let alone add more. We’re supposed to be a community that cares about the environment. Riverfront Park could be a natural area showcase for our town, a wonderful place to teach our kids the science of nature and ecology. And a great place to fish if we don’t mess with current fish habitats. And a cool, breezy place to picnic. And a healthy river for boating.

This plan is dated 2011. I don’t know of any environmental study done since then in relation to this plan. One council person said there were town halls about it last fall. I checked all the calendars, including Norristown.org and the Municipality’s Facebook events. Nope, no town halls about Riverfront Park at all.

Litter and trash in the park continues

Some of our council reps have spoken to me and seem open to discussing environmental concerns about Riverfront Park. From the rest of Municipal Hall, I’ve only heard repeated claims that Public Works “cleaned up” the riverfront last month. Apparently healthy vegetation is trash to them (while real trash is still left lying around).

Please contact your council person and ask that a healthy NATURAL environment be restored to the riverbank and incorporated into the Riverfront Park Plan, for the good of the whole community.

Riverfront Park Erosion Update

Last week I told you about the destruction of the vegetation on Riverfront Park's riverbank and explained why that vegetation is so important in preventing erosion, slowing flood waters, filtering pollution, providing a habitat for wildlife, and practically, just giving us a nice natural, cool place to picnic or fish on a hot summer's day.

I was curious as to what effect the weekend storms had on the muddy riverbank, so I went back yesterday morning. Here are some photos:

The Municipality must have also agreed that the erosion risk was now high, because they placed this blue construction bolster along the riverbank. Not a great look for our park. But more importantly in this photo, some of the scant vegetation that was left after the borough's "improvements" was gone after the weekend storms.

Here's a closer look at that bare spot from the above photo. You can see how much more vulnerable this part of the riverbank is to erosion now.

This is the end of the lot, just beyond the circle. There had been a deep eroded ditch there which Public Works filled with mud, but you can see on the right side of the photo that the runoff has already begun to form a new ditch under the bolster. This is where the parking lot is closest to the river and now there's no vegetation at all to protect either the riverbank or the parking lot.

This is the same spot on the other side of the bolster. It looks like at least a foot of riverbank washed away over the weekend here. I stood on the curb to take this photo ~ that's how close the river is to the parking lot.

This is better because the remaining trees and vegetation helped to provide protection from erosion, but you can see that some of the debris that had been on the bank is now in the water, so some flooding or erosion did take place.

This was only the result of one fierce but short storm Saturday, and some longer, more gentle bouts of rain on Sunday. I haven't had a chance to see if last night's storm did more damage. But it's absolutely imperative that native plants with good roots be replaced along the riverbank as quickly as possible.

How N-Town is Wasting Our Tax $ Now

At the end of last week, Norristown Municipality posted photos of Riverfront Park on their Facebook page with the caption, “Despite the gloomy weather, Norristown Public Works and Pennsylvania American Water are hard at work trimming trees and clearing out debris to give everyone a more beautiful view of Norristown's riverfront!” 48 people hit the Like or even the Love icon. What’s not to love, right?

Me? I thought “uh-oh” and went down to Riverfront this week to check it out.

What their photos didn’t show you was the mud they left behind. They essentially ripped out 90% or more of the vegetation along the riverbank—trees, undergrowth, you name it—and left mud and debris in their wake. Sure, everyone can see the river from any point in the parking lot now, but if you want shade for your picnic on these hot days, forget it. If you want to enjoy nature without looking at ugly mud and debris, you’ll have to head for Valley Forge.

Still, the inconvenience of picnickers is only a tiny part of the problem. The real disaster here is that most of the riparian buffer zone was destroyed. What’s a riparian buffer zone? It’s native vegetation that grows along a riverbank and has 4 important environmental functions:

1. Keeping the bank from eroding
2. Slowing flood waters
3. Absorbing pollution in stormwater runoff, to keep the river cleaner
4. Providing habitat (food and shelter) for fish and wildlife

If we get one or two heavy thunderstorms this week, some of that mud will disappear, right into the river. The next time we get a week of rain, a lot of what’s left of the riverbank could disappear. The dirt around the roots of the few trees they left will erode away and those trees will fall into the river. The riverbank will go bye-bye, then the parking lot will start to crack and wash away. I heard the PA American Water Company intends to plant grass seed. That won’t work. Residential grass doesn’t have roots deep enough or strong enough for a riverbank. 

A good strong flood could speed up the erosion process. Remember a few years ago, when a flood lifted the Dragon Boat’s trailer and washed it down to the Dekalb bridge? A flood like that now would do a lot more damage to Riverfront Park—destroy the parking lot, gouge out the hill behind it, even undermine the Schuylkill River Trail—because now we have very few trees and undergrowth to slow down flood waters. If Riverfront Park is inundated, the river could actually move inland permanently, then threaten Crawford Park and everything downstream.

Pollution? We already have elevated levels of nitrates in our river. We get our drinking water from there, folks. We ought to be trying to widen and strengthen the riparian buffer instead of destroying it.

A week and a half ago I went on the Audubon Center’s bird walk at Riverfront. We saw little birds in the trees all along the riverbank and heard frogs in the water. All those birds were gone yesterday, and I didn’t hear any frogs. If you’re one of the people who like to fish at Riverfront, the fish populations will probably decrease in the coming year because of lack of habitat.

I don’t know who at Municipal Hall had this brilliant idea to destroy an entire eco-system and put at risk one of our most unique parks, and the area all around it, and possibly even our water supply. The person ought to be fired.

A"before" picture of the riverbank

What will it take to fix the problem properly? Honestly, I’m not sure it CAN be fixed. An eco-system is a complex thing that takes decades, at least, to evolve. Planting native plants all along the bank would help. Widening the riparian zone would help, even if it’s only by 10 or 15 feet. Things that won’t help: grass or more concrete or asphalt. Whatever the solution, it’ll cost more tax money. Something they wouldn’t need to spend if they’d left well enough alone.

But frankly, I can’t see anyone at Municipal Hall publicly acknowledging their mistake. Or understanding that they made one in the first place.

Ironically, the Municipality just changed their Facebook cover to a pre-disaster area photo of Riverfront Park.

You can read more about riparian buffer zones on a PDF at the USDA's website at this link.