Blackwater River (West Virginia)
Course of the river
The Blackwater River State in Blackwater Falls State Park
Gorge of the Blackwater Rivers State in the Blackwater Falls State Park
The Blackwater River in the upper reaches in the Canaan Valley Resort State Park
North Fork of the Blackwater River in Thomas, WV
The Elakala Waterfall on the Blackwater River in West Virginia, USA.
The Blackwater River ( English for " black water river ") is a 50 km long river in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia in the United States.
About the Black Fork, he is a tributary of the Cheat River.
About this, the Monongahela River and the Ohio River, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River and drains an area of 368 km ².
Geography
The Blackwater River is a so-called black water river, which also gave him the name. The entire course of the river is within the Tucker counties. It rises in 991 meters and first crosses the wetlands of Canaan Valley Canaan Valley Resort State Park and Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Then he takes on the two tributaries North Branch River Blackwater and Little Blackwater River. Then he turns to for the rest of his run to the southwest.
After the flow is flowed past the city Davis, he plunges over the Blackwater Falls in Blackwater Falls State Park 17 m in depth and enters the 12.5 km long Blackwater Canyon. In Hendricks, it flows together with the Dry Fork and forms the Black Fork. The mouth is situated at an altitude of 520 m.
Hydrographic
The United States Geological Survey operates on the Blackwater River near Davis two levels. At the level below the average annual runoff Davis is 5 m³ / s
Restoration of the river
The treatment of mine water in the catchment area of the Black Waters was awarded because of their success by the Office of Surface Mining. Acid mine water is formed when strata are exposed with sulphite minerals to the influence of air and rainwater. This is the case when mining is conducted in the form of mining. The resulting sulfuric acid can dissolve metals such as iron, aluminum and magnesium. By 2004, the combination of acids and dissolved heavy metals has harmed in the Appalachian Mountains streams in a length of about 19,300 km, including the Blackwater River and its tributaries.
The renovation of the Blackwater River and its catchment area was expensive and a complex project, which consisted of two major parts.
As part of the Douglas Highwall Abandoned Mine Reclamation Projects Country 14,400 tons of limestone at the North Branch of the Blackwater Rivers were introduced below by Thomas. Although not the experimental system worked as intended and no measurable increase in the base - level has created, the total amount of dissolved in water acids and heavy metals from abandoned mine was significantly reduced in the river system.
More successful was a project directly above Davis on Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Blackwater River. A water powered mill limestone mixes it into the water.
A developed in Sweden metering system for stray ground limestone was installed as an additional measure. The eight-kilometer section between the station and the confluence of the Blackwater River to the North Branch is now one of the best stretches of river to fish for trout.