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Mohawk River
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Mohawk River is a 140-mile (230 km) long river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River and it meets it in the Capital Region, a few miles north of the city of Albany, New York.[4] The river is named for the Mohawk Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy. It is a major waterway in north-central New York.
Course
From its source in Lewis County the Mohawk River flows generally east through the Mohawk Valley, passing by the cities of Rome, Utica, Amsterdam, and Schenectady before entering the Hudson River near Albany.

River modifications
The river and its supporting canal, the Erie Canal (a part of the New York State Canal System, called the New York State Barge Canal for much of the 20th century), connect the Hudson River and port of New York with the Great Lakes at Buffalo, New York.[5] The lower part of the Mohawk River has five permanent dams, nine movable dams (seasonal) and five active hydropower plants.[6]
The Schoharie Creek and the West Canada Creek are the principle tributaries to the Mohawk River. Both of these tributaries have several significant dams including the Hinckley Dam on the West Canada and the Gilboa Dam on the upper reaches of the Schoharie Creek. The Gilboa Dam, which was completed in 1926 as part of the New York City water supply system, is the subject of an active and aggressive rehabilitation project.[7]

History
The river has long been important to transportation and migration to the west as a passage between the Allegheny and Adirondack highlands. The fertile Mohawk Valley also attracted early settlers. A number of important battles of the French and Indian War and the Revolution were fought here.
In the early nineteenth century water transport was a vital means of transport both people and goods. A corporation was formed to build a canal, known as the Erie Canal, off the Mohawk River to Lake Erie. The canal cut shipping costs to Lake Erie by 95%.[citation needed] It also simplified and reduced the difficulties of westward settler migration.
The Mohawk River Heritage Corridor Commission was created to preserve and promote the natural and historic assets of the Mohawk River. This commission was created by the NY State Legislature in 1997 to improve historic preservation along the river.[8]

Flooding and Discharge
The Mohawk River has a relatively long record of flooding that have been documented back to settlement in the 17th century.[9] The average volume of water that flows through the Mohawk is about 5.2 cubic kilometers (~1.5 cubic miles) every year. Much of the water flows through the watershed in the spring as snow melts rapidly and enters the tributaries and the main trunk of the river. The maximum average daily flow on the river occurs between late March and early April. For the period between 1917 to 2000, the highest mean daily flow is c. 18k cfs (18,000 cubic feet per second) as measured at Cohoes, near the confluence with the Hudson. The lowest mean daily flow of 1.4k cfs occurs in that same time interval in late August. There is a long record of significant and damaging floods along the entire length of the river.[10]
Because the river and its tributaries typically freeze in the winter, the spring melt is commonly accompanied by ice floes that commonly get stuck and jammed along the main trunk of the river. This annual spring break up typically occurs in the last few weeks of March, although there are plenty of floods that have occurred before or after this time. These ice jams can cause considerable damage to structures along the riverbanks and on the floodplain. The most severe flood of record on the main trunk of the Mohawk River was the spring break up flood that occurred from 27-28 March, 1914. This flood caused a tremendous amount of damage to the infrastructure because it was a spring break up flood with enormous amounts of ice. Ice jams of some significance occur about every other year.[11][12]
The last major flood on the Mohawk was on 26-29 June 2006. Flooding was caused by a stalled frontal system that resulted in 2-13 inches of rain across central NY State and widespread flooding occurred in the Mohawk, Delaware, and Susquehanna watersheds. Across the NY State, this event caused over $227 m in damage and resulted in the loss of four lives. This flooding was acute in the upper parts of the Mohawk watershed.[