by Justin Mando
From the bird’s eye view, the Conejohela Flats is a hospitable place to land, but will it remain so? The Audubon Society has designated this a place of national importance for its role in the seasonal migrations of shorebirds, a significant stop on the Atlantic Flyway. Just downriver from the historic towns of Columbia and Wrightsville, these flats occupy the foreground of the familiar Turkey Hill windmills and the Enola Low Grade Trail, and they give the river its tremendous sense of scale when viewed from Hallam Township’s Highpoint Park. These islands rise and sink beneath the surface of the Susquehanna as the whims of nature and dam operators reveal vast mud flats in low river flows and just the tip-tops of iceberg islands when the river is running high. In addition to avian visitors, these flats attract paddlers, recreators, and revelers of the human variety. Along with them, comes a steady stream of plastic trash that these islands strain and hold. But for now, we will keep our distance as we stick to the sky.
Bird’s Eye View
Bird’s Eye View
As we take to the air on imagined wings, we meet a peregrine falcon soaring across the treetops. Not to be outdone, an osprey speeds past on its angled wings and dives dramatically to the surface of the river to snatch a fish. Circling the islands, we see migrating shorebirds dotting the flat. Puffy plovers and bulbous sandpipers tenderly step and peck, casting shadows that make their tremendous numbers seem double. Blue and green herons, white egrets, and belted kingfishers are residents here, making room for the influx come migration season. There is plenty of sustenance here for all these birds, plus the mammals, fish, and reptiles that share this place. They just pluck food out of the river or they eat an animal who has.
What is most striking about the Conejohela Flats from the air is how pristine these islands seem. They appear as if untouched. What is most surprising as we swoop in for a closer look is that our human hands have done a great deal of shaping here.
Approaching by Boat
Approaching by Boat
Now we’re pushing off from the shore at Long Level, bow pointed towards Lancaster County. The Conejohela Flats blend into the scene. You can’t tell that these are islands run through with back channels, mud flats, and lotus rafts. Turkey Hill and its two turbines offer perspective on the curvature of the banks. Along the Lancaster bank, the bottom of the river drops to a depth of 35 feet. Imagine that Turkey Hill continues to descend at the same steep grade down deep enough to submerge a telephone pole. Flathead catfish skulk in that darkness, nudging with their whiskers the sunken refuse that has settled there.
Approaching from the south, the mud flats rise to the rounded end of Grace Island. We find a large driftwood perch for six bald eagles, four full grown and two juveniles. They command this space, feasting on fish and rodents, calling the attention of all who see them. We pause to observe. If you spend any amount of time out here, you’ll know that bald eagles have made a tremendous rebound since Pennsylvania native Rachel Carson raised the alarm of an impending silent spring. The eagles chatter to one another, then the smallest spreads its wings and takes off. It rises then swoops behind the tree line. As it does, our eyes land on an object bobbing down the river. It’s a half-full container of motor oil. We get our boat into position and swoop the long-handled fishing net into the river.
From Boat to Shore
From Boat to Shore
Wading around the Conejohela Flats is better done with webbed feet than boots, but we will make do with what we have. Our feet sink into the muck, at times at depths enough to make you gasp as your boot succumbs to the mud.
At this level, we see with our feet through the stained water. We step gingerly and feel ahead before we press down firmly. When we kick an underwater object, in the Flats, there are good odds that might just be a radial tire. Our kick may have disturbed a flathead catfish or a smallmouth bass from its unnatural shelter. Hopefully, we haven’t found a snakehead, though they are likely here too. None of these fish are native to our area, yet all have their supporters in the fishing community. Of course, not everyone is ready to embrace that kind of change. Some of us prefer smallmouth bass while others like catfish. Some are excited about the voracious appetite and vile disposition of snakeheads while others fear them. While we can’t agree on which fish are wanted, we can all agree that automobile tires have no business in this place. Whether we want catch limits on flathead catfish to protect them as sportfish or kill-on-catch provisions to protect other sportfish, we can all say that plastic bottles, discarded footwear, shopping bags, Styrofoam blocks, and all other manner of manufactured items that will persist forever in our river ecosystem do not belong. Yet we find these items in huge quantities covering these islands.
Closeup of the Ground
Closeup of the Ground
What can be especially striking when we shift our view from far away to increasingly closer is that there is never less to see. We could feast our eyes on the islands from the air all day, but when we drop to our knees with our hands in the soil, the feeling of grandeur is replaced with astonishment, then disbelief. The large pieces of debris command our attention first. The plastic bottles we found strewn across the banks now dominate the scene. Yet, the more we look, the more we notice. Among the leaf litter, we discover plastic as numerous as it appeared on the banks from a distance. We find bottle caps, spent lighters, shreds of plastic bags, and Styrofoam bits everywhere. We see broken bits of plastic no longer reminiscent of the items of their origin. They are just bits of colorful plastic among the leaves, roots, and soil.
A bird can’t fit a discarded Gatorade bottle in its beak, but the tiny colored bits of plastic that permeate this island may well be enticing to many creatures. Think back to the shorebirds pecking into the mudflats or the osprey diving for fish. They snap at likely targets, as do fish. They do not have hands to pick up and examine that colorful object drifting past, so they must use their mouths.
We talk about legacy sediment that builds behind dams, threatening to wash over and smother ecologies downriver and into the Chesapeake Bay. The legacies that sediment represents is a wholly different history from the legacy we will leave behind. Our legacy is inextricably linked to the creation, distribution, disposal, and disintegration of plastic. Yet, the plastic never truly disintegrates. It just gets smaller and smaller. And it accumulates. Since these ruinous amounts of plastic never go away, more and more of us can expect to be ingesting tiny amounts of plastic, collecting inside.
Microscopic Level
Microscopic Level
At the microscopic level, Grace Island appears to us in a dingy white divided into plots. These are not the wisps of winter, but instead a filter paper just membranous enough to trap pips, chunks, and strands of plastic barely visible to the naked eye. Just as we hovered over the land and water from the vantage of a bird, here too we hover over a world. In this one, we pause time, freezing the river onto film. What we find are strands of microplastic fibers, a red one perhaps from a fleece jacket and small black curly pieces maybe from a tarp or a synthetic rope. Their origin will not be easy to discover, but their future we can be sure is to persist in our water, in our soil, in our bodies.
A Susquehanna University study of microplastic presence in smallmouth bass reported 100% of fish sampled contained them. It’s no wonder when we see how plastic pervades our environment the closer you look. Plastic is everywhere in our environment, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
The Upshot
The Upshot
What is the source of all this refuse? It’s all of us in the Susquehanna River watershed. When rain washes a dropped bottle into a storm drain in Steelton, Sunbury, or Wellsboro, that gets flushed into creeks, streams, rivers, then the Chesapeake Bay and, ultimately, the Atlantic Ocean. That’s the pathway unless that bottle gets hung up on the Conejohela Flats or someplace upriver. The tires, plastic bottles, Styrofoam blocks, and all manner of petroleum-based trash enter the river through human carelessness, simply put. The territory of the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association encompasses over 8,500 square miles of watershed from Selinsgrove to the river’s mouth at Havre de Grace. This includes all tributaries down to the size of a trickle to the mighty Susquehanna herself. The watershed itself is 27,510 square miles, an area the same size as Ireland, and it’s all flowing towards its mouth at the Chesapeake Bay.
What can you do about this problem? Your presence in these places is the most important way you can contribute. Just as the birds on the Atlantic Flyway keep coming back to our place on the Susquehanna Riverlands, we should also keep returning. Walk along the river trails or bike them. Paddle a kayak or a canoe, take out a pontoon boat, wade the shorelines. Fish, splash, play. The Susquehanna is breathtakingly beautiful despite its flaws.
Other ways you can help stop plastic from polluting our river and our bodies:
- Take a garbage bag with you to clean up when you’re out if you’re able to do so. This is an easy way to make a difference that feels great when you see the noticeable improvement you’ve made. Imagine if most of us carried out more than we carry in.
- Avoid single-use plastics at the retail counter. Say no to plastic bottles, shopping bags, utensils, straws, and excessive packing. Go with reusable options. Keep the trash from entering the system in the first place.
- You can join one of our volunteer crews on our quest to clean up the Lower Susquehanna. We regularly remove plastic trash and tires from the Susquehanna River and its tributaries. Find out about our upcoming events on our website to help make an even bigger impact.
- You can support the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association by making a donation or becoming a member.
Credits
Written by: Justin Mando, Ph.D., Past LSRA Board Chair/Current LSRA Board Member (c.)2021
Images of Conejohela Flats by: Michael Yatsko Photography (c.)2021
