Mohawk River 📍

The Mohawk River, spanning around 149 miles, weaves through the northeastern US, connecting diverse landscapes and history. Rising from the Adirondack Mountains and merging with the Hudson River, its course touches urban areas, small towns, and nature. The river’s significance intertwines with the historic Erie Canal, fostering regional growth. Besides being a vital transportation route, it offers kayaking, boating, and fishing opportunities. Its banks provide scenic trails for bicycling and hiking, allowing exploration of its environs. The river serves as a living testament to Native American heritage, colonial exploration, and industrial development, reflecting a rich interplay between nature and human progress.

Map: Floodwood Road Campsites
Map: Degrasse State Forest

Coal fly ash in the Mohawk – by John Garver

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Coal fly ash in the Mohawk – by John Garver

Fly ash from burning coal is almost everywhere in the Mohawk River and a hotspot between Amsterdam and Schenectady may indicate that the river is cutting into spoils dumped long ago. I recently wrote about microplastics in the River, and that work resulted in a parallel study on the discovery of fly ash in the same samples caught in a manta trawl pulled through the water. This recent finding is concerning because fly ash contains a number of heavy metals and toxins. When we started this investigation, we weren’t looking for fly ash; we were looking for microplastics but stumbled upon this interesting issue related to burning coal from long ago.

Coal fly ash is produced from the combustion of coal in power plants. Fly ash and coal ash are the less dense waste byproducts of coal-burning furnaces, but together they make up the bulk of the Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR). Both have a basic chemistry dominated by (Si Al O?Fe) with or without additional elements (e.g., Zn, Ti) - and also a number of heavy metals, especially arsenic.