Black River Origin in Mount Arlington Also? Who Knew?

 by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Am I the only one just learning that Mount Arlington hosts the Northernmost tip of the Black River? 

If this isn't already common knowledge, then let's welcome Mount Arlington to the list of many municipalities that share a portion of the Raritan River Basin, the largest river basin entirely within New Jersey's border. The upper Black River tributary in Mount Arlington stretches for about 1.6 miles north, up past Dunlop Pond. There may be another branch heading west along Seasons Drive. 

I don't yet know to what extent the tributary may be spring-fed, but where it crosses under Rt. 80, it is a moderate-sized creek (meaning you can jump over it) under normal weather conditions. It is only one of two natural water sources that enter Hercules. The other tributary is the man-made pipeline that directs water from Drakes Pond under Rt. 46 and into the Great Spring wetland area. All other inputs are from storm drains along Howard Blvd. and Rt. 46. 

If you live in the area and didn't know this, it could be due to a discontinuity observed in the aerial photograms that NJDEP uses to map the states' streams. An old underground pipeline on the 1,000-acre Hercules property in Kenvil creates the apparent discontinuity. 

The normal amount of water volume in this tributary is about a third less than the Drakes Pond inflow. This information is important to me in my quest to estimate how much spring water vents up from the Great Spring within the southern wetland.