Catalina Jaramillo reports for PlanPhilly
Philadelphians will be able to continue enjoying the long tradition of rowing on the Schuylkill River.
That heritage is no longer in peril now that $4.5 million has been found to dredge shallow areas of silt around Boathouse Row and the national racecourse. The money came from members of the 10 rowing clubs of Boathouse Row; universities with rowing programs; the three major regatta organizations; and individual donors, foundations and institutions, as well as from city and state funds.
“Philadelphia is seen nationally and internationally as a leader and as a hub for the sport of rowing,” said Kathryn Ott Lovell, the city’s Parks & Recreation commissioner. “It’s just become a part of our culture here in Philadelphia, it’s become very much a part of our park system. The Schuylkill River, and Boathouse Row, and Kelly Drive, and West River Drive have become iconic landmarks for us in the city of Philadelphia, and I just can’t imagine what the Schuylkill would be like if we didn’t have that recreational aspect to this beautiful natural asset.”
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Silt has accumulated in the riverbed since it was last dredged in 1999, resulting in uneven depth in the racecourse and in areas around the boathouses. The Schuylkill Navy, as the association of rowing clubs is known, has been trying to get it dredged for four years.
Paul Laskow, chair of the Schuylkill Navy’s River Restoration Committee, said access to the river has become unsafe because there is only a very narrow and shallow channel available right now. Famed regattas were beginning to lose competitors, he said, because organizers didn’t feel that all six lanes were safe and equal — lane six is less than 2 feet deep, while the others are closer to 10 feet deep.
The largest scholastic, collegiate and club regattas are held in Philadelphia, Laskow said. No dredging would have meant the end of the economic benefits brought to the city by such regattas as Dad Vail and the Stotesbury Cup. But it also would have meant the end of a rowing tradition here that goes back to the 19th century.
“Rowing in the United States really more or less started here, and this was the epicenter of rowing well into the 20th century,” Laskow said. “If there’s no rowing, the boathouses would go dark, as they did in the Depression. And that would be, I think, a blow to civic pride.”
The dredging work will be done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and take about 90 days to complete. The plan is to remove accumulated sediment shoals at four locations that include portions of the racecourse in the vicinity of Peter’s Island and the Strawberry Mansion Bridge; an area around the docks in front of Boathouse Row; and an adaptive rowing access point to the river below the Columbia Railroad Bridge.
An estimated 60,000 cubic yards of material will be removed and transported to Fairmount Dam, and then taken downstream to the Fort Mifflin Confined Disposal Facility, according to a public notice by the Army Corps. Work will start by mid-August and is expected to finish before the end of the year, without disrupting regattas.
