The Blackwater River is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed August 15, 2011 in the

Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...

of eastern

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

, USA. Via the Black Fork, it is a principal

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

of the

Cheat River The Cheat River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Monongahela River in eastern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the Uni ...

. Via the Cheat, the Monongahela and the

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

rivers, it is part of the watershed of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

and drains an area of . It is a true blackwater stream, owing to

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

and hemlock trees in its watershed, the tannins of which impart a

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and northe ...

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In Ma ...

color to its water.Hissom, Patricia. 2006. "Blackwater River." ''The West Virginia Encyclopedia''. Ken Sullivan, editor. Charleston, WV: West Virginia Humanities Council. .

Geography

The entire course and drainage area of the Blackwater lie within

Tucker County Tucker County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,762, making it West Virginia's fourth-least populous county. Its county seat is Parsons. The county was created in 1856 from a part of ...

DeLorme DeLorme is the producer of personal satellite tracking, messaging, and navigation technology. The company’s main product, ''inReach'', integrates GPS and satellite technologies. ''inReach'' provides the ability to send and receive text messages ...

(1997). ''West Virginia Atlas & Gazetteer''. Yarmouth, Maine: DeLorme. . It rises on Canaan Mountain at an elevation of and initially meanders north-northeastwardly through the

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

s of

Canaan Valley Canaan Valley () is a large bathtub-shaped upland valley in northeastern Tucker County, West Virginia, USA. Within it are extensive wetlands and the headwaters of the Blackwater River which spills out of the valley at Blackwater Falls. It is a w ...

, passing through the

Canaan Valley Resort State Park Canaan Valley Resort State Park is a state park in the eastern United States, within Canaan Valley in Tucker County, West Virginia. Located in the highest valley east of the Mississippi River, the park contains the second-largest inland wetland ...

and the

Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge The Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge (CVNWR) in Tucker County, West Virginia, was the 500th National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) to be established in the United States. The refuge preserves a moist valley with unique wetlands and uplands at a rel ...

, and collecting two short tributaries known as the North Branch Blackwater River and the Little Blackwater River. Below the mouth of the latter, the Blackwater turns west-southwestwardly for the remainder of its course. After passing the town of

Davis Davis may refer to: Places Antarctica * Mount Davis (Antarctica) * Davis Island (Palmer Archipelago) * Davis Valley, Queen Elizabeth Land Canada * Davis, Saskatchewan, an unincorporated community * Davis Strait, between Nunavut and Gre ...

, it falls over

Blackwater Falls Blackwater Falls State Park is located in the Allegheny Mountains of Tucker County, West Virginia, US. The centerpiece of the park is Blackwater Falls, a cascade where the Blackwater River leaves its leisurely course in Canaan Valley and enters ...

and enters the eight-mile (13 km) long

Blackwater Canyon Blackwater Canyon is a rugged, heavily wooded, long gorge carved by the Blackwater River in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, USA. For many years, it has been the object of controversy as environmental activists have contended w ...

Blackwater Falls State Park Blackwater Falls State Park is located in the Allegheny Mountains of Tucker County, West Virginia, US. The centerpiece of the park is Blackwater Falls, a cascade where the Blackwater River leaves its leisurely course in Canaan Valley and enters ...

. Here it forms

whitewater rapids Whitewater forms in a rapid context, in particular, when a river's gradient changes enough to generate so much turbulence that air is trapped within the water. This forms an unstable current that froths, making the water appear opaque and ...

of Class IV-V+ and collects the eight-mile (13 km) long North Fork Blackwater River, which flows past the town of

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

. Finally, the Blackwater joins the Dry Fork to form the Black Fork at the town of Hendricks, at an elevation of .

Water quality

Blackwater

As with other

blackwater river A blackwater river is a type of river with a slow-moving channel flowing through forested swamps or wetlands. As vegetation decays, tannins leach into the water, making a transparent, acidic water that is darkly stained, resembling black te ...

s, the color of West Virginia's Blackwater River results from the leaching of tannins from the decaying leaves of vegetation adjoining the stream in its upper reaches, which are slow moving. Fallen needles from stands of

eastern hemlock ''Tsuga canadensis'', also known as eastern hemlock, eastern hemlock-spruce, or Canadian hemlock, and in the French-speaking regions of Canada as ''pruche du Canada'', is a coniferous tree native to eastern North America. It is the state tree of ...

and

red spruce ''Picea rubens'', commonly known as red spruce, is a species of spruce native to eastern North America, ranging from eastern Quebec and Nova Scotia, west to the Adirondack Mountains and south through New England along the Appalachians to western ...

contribute primarily to this, although

rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; from Ancient Greek ''rhódon'' "rose" and ''déndron'' "tree") is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are nati ...

, mountain laurel and the

sphagnum ''Sphagnum'' is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, peat moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of ''Sphagnum'' can store wa ...

bogs of

also contribute. The Blackwater is also typical in having transparent, acidic, and oligotrophic (very low nutrient) water.

Acid mine drainage

Beginning in the 1880s, the Blackwater River watershed (especially the segment of the North Fork of the Blackwater River between the towns of

and

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals *Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking *Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...

) suffered extreme environmental degradation due to deep mining and coke production. This was exacerbated by the

surface mining Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...

activities of the 1960s and '70s, which brought about a severe decline in water quality due to

acid mine drainage Acid mine drainage, acid and metalliferous drainage (AMD), or acid rock drainage (ARD) is the outflow of acidic water from metal mines or coal mines. Acid rock drainage occurs naturally within some environments as part of the rock weathering ...

(AMD). In recent years, the

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

treatment of AMD in the Blackwater River has met with success with the effort receiving an award from the U.S.

Office of Surface Mining The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) is a branch of the United States Department of the Interior. It is the federal agency entrusted with the implementation and enforcement of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamati ...

. AMD is created when

sulfite Sulfites or sulphites are compounds that contain the sulfite ion (or the sulfate(IV) ion, from its correct systematic name), . The sulfite ion is the conjugate base of bisulfite. Although its acid ( sulfurous acid) is elusive, its salts are wide ...

-bearing

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. ( ...

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ei ...

are exposed to air and rainwater, such as when

occurs. The

sulfuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...

produced from the sulfite reaction can dissolve metals such as

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...

, and

magnesium Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical reactivity. Like the other alkaline earth metals (group 2 of the periodic ta ...

. By 2004, the combination of acid and dissolved metals drainage had destroyed or damaged about of streams in

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...

, including the Blackwater River and streams in its watershed. Restoration of the Blackwater River watershed was a costlySkousen, J., Gorman, J., and Ziemkiewicz, P., ''Long Term Effects of Acid Mine Drainage Remediation Projects on Stream Quality'', Proceedings Twentieth Annual West Virginia Surface Mine Drainage Task Force Symposium, Morgantown, WV, April 13-14, 1999.
Zurbuch, P.E., ''Early Results from Calcium Carbonate Neutralization of Two West Virginia Rivers Acidified by Mine Drainage'', Seventeenth Annual West Virginia Surface Mine Drainage Task Force Symposium, Morgantown, WV, April 2-3, 1996.
and complex task involving two large projects. The Douglas Highwall Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Project installed 16,000 tons (14,400 tonnes) of limestone in a "Wetland/Anoxic Limestone Drain (WALD) system" on the North Fork Blackwater River downstream of Thomas. Although the experimental WALD system did not perform as intended, and "has not generated measurable alkalinity" it did reduce the total acid and metal load in the water discharge from the abandoned mine into the river system. More successful was a project just upstream of Davis, on Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Blackwater. A six-drum water-powered limestone grinding station adds limestone slurry to the water flowing down Beaver Creek. A

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

-designed limestone powder dosing system was also installed as backup to the drum system. The stretch of the Blackwater between the limestone station and the confluence with the North Fork has now become one of West Virginia's premiere catch and release trout streams.West Virginia Department of Natural Resources Special Fishing Regulations web page, accessed August 27, 2006.

Gallery

Image:Blackwater River Canaan Valley Resort State Park.jpg, Upper reaches of the Blackwater River in the wetlands of

Blackwater River Blackwater Falls State Park West Virginia.jpg, The Blackwater River near where it crosses into

Image:Blackwater Falls.jpg, Blackwater Falls drops about 62' in

Image:Blackwater River Canyon West Virginia.jpg, Blackwater River Gorge viewed from the lodge in Blackwater Falls State Park Black Fork confluence Hendricks West Virginia.jpg, Confluence with Dry Fork to form Black Fork Image:Blackwater River North Fork Thomas West Virginia.jpg, North Fork Blackwater River in

Douglas waterfalls-1 ForestWander.jpg, Douglas Falls (North Fork Falls), a drop of about 35' on the North Fork Blackwater River

River water level

Two real time water gauges are available from the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

:
Blackwater River real time water gauge, 2.8 miles northeast of Davis, West VirginiaBlackwater River real time water gauge, 0.4 miles southwest of Davis, West Virginia

References

External links

Blackwater Falls State ParkCanaan Valley Resort State ParkCanaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge
{{authority control Rivers of West Virginia Monongahela National Forest Rivers of Tucker County, West Virginia Natural history of West Virginia Wild and Scenic Rivers of the United States