How Much We Love Buffalo River

Riverkeeper's October Buffalo River monitoring run began with the winds against us, literally, as we attempted to launch from Erie Basin Marina beach into a wild surf. Having shoved off the Riverwatch 1 canoe bearing the rest of the team (staffers Chris and Robin) into the maelstrom, I stuffed the nose of Riverwatch 2 kayak into a nice big wave and paddled out to join them.

It's always moments like these, sitting in 3 inches of wet water, with the summer conspiciously over, that I remember to buy that spray skirt thing to keep the water out of your boat. It's only been happening for, like, 10 years. Anyhoo, there we were plugging away for the mouth of the Buffalo River, but the gusting wind and relentless waves were just too much for big ole Riverwatch 1 which became first ornery and then impossible, bent on destruction upon the toothy riprap of the harbor's improved edge. Chris heeled around for shore and we beached the boats abruptly, like a couple of depressed whales. They lolled there, bashed by unsympathetic waves, as we contemplated hauling them back up over thirty yards of driftlogs and boulders to the (one) car.

Morale was really flagging, so we cracked out our lunch snacks and had a picnic. Afterwards, being wet anyways, we jumped over some waves (see photo evidence). Outlooks considerably improved, up we loaded and ahead we forged to Buffalo River's Smith Street launch, stopping on the way to pick up a coliform sample from Ohio Street.

The big river was just calm as could be, and the only wind to speak of was a tail wind. We paddled onward. Angry kingfishers rattled at us. Herons whooshed pterodactylly overhead. Fish leaped. Our clothes began to dry. We held a moment of silence under the South Park bridge for those departed. We documented presumed pump failures at the Mobil site that were allowing contaminated, black, diesel reeking groundwater to seep out the bank in its manifest destiny push for the river.

Our lunch for breakfast had worn off by the time we cozied up to Charlie O'Briens, a fine purveyor of Irish food and drink right on the river shore. O'Briens is conveniently located quite near the headquarters of B.R.A.W.N. (Buffalo River Assembly Wednesday Night), the conveners of which are in collusion with Riverkeeper, so we stashed our gear there and headed in to BLTs and other good things.

Back in the river, we headed to our pickup location at Harlem Road Fishing Access site, documenting the gross sewer overflow issues near Ogden Street along the way. Maybe someone was shooting a movie, as we found a Universal Studios scene changer and encountered a slick of fresh blood on a bleached tree beached in the middle of the river.

Diving into the usual car-and-boat crunch fiasco, with the help of Riverkeeper staffer Shannon and her trusty minivan, we got Chris to work, my car back to the boats, the boat back to Chris' and Robin & I back to the lab with our seven samples to run for total coliform and E coli counts. We'll be back in November to do it all (well, hopefully not all) again!