Schuylkill Canal Series: E FLAT ROCK Traditional Geocache
FairmountWaterWorks: This Flat Rock Dam area is under construction until 2024. While the trail is open now, there may be times during the next two years that it is closed, so the cache would be inaccessible. We've decided to archive it partly for that reason, and partly because the type of cache we like to hide (16-oz water bottle full of river animals) is expensive to replace and we've had to replace it about five times because of floods and downpours. We hope to create an Adventure Lab here instead, when the construction is finished. Thanks everyone for visiting this cool place, reading about its history, and enjoying our cache! - PhillyRiver and Fairmount Water Works
Schuylkill Canal Series: E FLAT ROCK
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This Canal Series takes you to several fascinating engineering sites in the Schuylkill watershed. It was launched in 2016 for the 200th anniversary of the 1816 start of construction for the Schuylkill Navigation system, sometimes called, misleadingly, the Schuylkill Canal. NO NEED TO CLIMB BEHIND ROCKS, NEAR RR TRACKS, or OVER FENCE .
Flat Rock Dam is #31 of 32 in the Schuylkill Navigation System, and among the first to be completed, in 1819. This incredible 108-mile system of dams, slackwater pools, canals, and locks was built by hand to tame the river for commerce and power. It stretched from the coal-rich mountains of Schuylkill County to Philadelphia's Fairmount Water Works at Dam #32. Numerous mill towns, including Manayunk near this cache, sprang up along the new canals and immediately began polluting Philadelphia's drinking water source, the Schuylkill River. Other nearby water-related infrastructure includes the ruins of the Roxborough Pumping Station, an interceptor sewer line along the Schuylkill River Trail, the Manayunk Canal Reach, and the ruins of Lock 68 and its sluice house. New Schuylkill River animals placed in this cache June 6, 2016: largemouth bass pumpkinseed sunfish channel catfish tiger muskie bald eagle box turtle. [This cache was washed away in the 9/2/21 Ida flood. Now there is a smaller one with just one fish.) The lower Schuylkill now has 57 species of fish (2021), as well as other animals that feed on them, including the humans who come to its banks with fishing rods. These are ecological indicators of watershed health. In the 1940s, the river ran black with coal silt and other wastes, and there were no fish at all. The government Schuylkill River Project of 1947-51 dredged the river and removed most of the dams, so the river could clean itself again. Over the past fifteen years, the American shad has been reintroduced. Along with other anadromous fishes, shad swim upriver in the spring using the fishways (a.k.a. fish passages or fish ladders) constructed at the four remaining navigation dams. The Flat Rock fishway is on the far end of the dam behind the concrete wall. The Schuylkill is still the drinking water source for about half of Philadelphia, as well as Norristown, Phoenixville, and Pottstown. CONGRATS TO FORBEZ AND PEZGIRL22 FOR FIRST TO FIND
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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