... That’s the impression many people have as they stroll the forested trails that run alongside this shallow, meandering waterway. But dive deeper into the water itself and the painting transforms from idyllic landscape to 21st-century realism. 

“The Wissahickon, if you walk through it, is beautiful,” says Gail Farmer, executive director of Wissahickon Trails, a non-profit organization focused on protecting the Montgomery County portion of the Wissahickon Valley. “But if you know what you are looking for, you know that it suffers from stormwater destruction and damage as much as any other urban stream.” 

The extent of the damage is documented in a 2004-2016 Wissahickon Watershed Stream Monitoring and Assessment Program study conducted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). It classified the creek and its main tributaries as “impaired,” meaning it does not meet the conditions necessary to support aquatic life. 

In layman’s terms, the Wissahickon is one sick creek. 

Wissahickon Trails and other organizations and individuals have continued to monitor the creek since then, and the news hasn’t gotten much better. For instance, during the driest months, the “vast majority” of the creek’s surface water is treated discharge from the four wastewater treatment plants located upstream in Montgomery County. Human feces have been detected in the water samples. 

“I would definitely say, don’t go swimming in the Wissahickon,” Farmer says.

As bleak as it may sound, the news is not all gloom and doom. The Wissahickon has a lot more going for it than most watersheds found in such an urban environment.  

“The good news is how much people care about the creek and how important it is to their lives,” says Ruffian Tittmann, executive director of Friends of the Wissahickon. “There has been a large investment inside the city and suburbs to protect the creek.” 

The name, Wissahickon, may derive from the Lenape word Wisameckhan, which translates to “catfish creek” – kind of ironic because catfish are bottom feeders and even they couldn’t survive in today’s water. And in case you’re wondering, the Wissahickon doesn’t spring from a far-off, pristine, snow-capped mountain. It gurgles from the earth in a parking lot at the Montgomeryville Mall.

“That’s its beginning, and it doesn’t get much better from there,” Farmer says. “It really sort of sets the tone for the Wissahickon Creek story.”

As the Wissahickon wends its way to rendezvous with the Schuylkill River 23 miles downstream, it courses past 13 heavily developed and populated municipalities and those four wastewater treatment plants. With development come impervious surfaces – streets, buildings, cars – that create runoff carrying all manner of pollution into the creek. 

In a natural setting, Farmer explains, rain would hit the ground, slowly be absorbed, and eventually recharge the creek. The Wissahickon doesn’t get that kind of natural boost. 

“In a nutshell, Wissahickon Creek faces health challenges from pollution that enters the creek from stormwater and other sources of discharge, and challenges from the ultra-hydrology from our urban landscape,” Farmer says.

Things would be a lot worse if not for a group of visionary folks who, 67 years ago, formed the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association to protect the “quality and beauty” of the creek. That association, established in 1957, is now Wissahickon Trails – and has been purchasing forested land on either side of the main stem of the Wissahickon to ‘’buffer’’ and protect it ever since. 

Today that riparian buffer is called the Green Ribbon Preserve. Its mature trees are one reason the Wissahickon isn’t in worse shape.     

“The trees do two really important things,” says Laura Toran, PhD, an Earth and Environmental Sciences professor at Temple University who studies nutrients in the creek. “Their roots keep the bank more stable and that helps with sediment. The trees also provide shading, and that keeps the nutrients from the algae getting overgrown and creating low oxygen zones.”

In one study, Toran placed data collectors downstream from the wastewater treatment plants. In spring, when the leaves were not out, the data showed “high productivity” of nutrients. But readings revert to almost normal just a few miles downstream once the trees bloom, she says. 

“I’m pretty impressed with the Wissahickon, actually,” says Toran, who is also a certified professional geologist.

Toran is equally impressed with the work being done by the Philadelphia Water Department, which actively monitors the creek’s water quality upstream in Montgomery County. 

“They are not just blithely waiting for whatever is sent to them,” she says. “They are keeping an eye on what is going on in the suburbs so that they will be ready. They have an excellent water quality lab.” 

Monitoring and optimizing wastewater treatment facilities is one of four strategies laid out by the EPA and PA DEP in their Wissahickon stream monitoring report. The others are improving stormwater management; in-stream and stream bank restoration and protection; and riparian buffer improvements.  

Its “impaired” classification qualifies the Wissahickon for protection under the 1972 Clean Water Act. To keep taxpayer costs down and avoid 17 different restoration plans, regulators allowed the municipalities and wastewater treatment plants to form the Wissahickon Clean Water Partnership (WCWP) to present a watershed-wide plan.

“That is huge because we can’t even hope for any kind of success in terms of the Wissahickon without that happening,” Farmer says.

WCWP submitted a draft plan to regulators just as the pandemic hit in 2020. More than a year passed before it received questions and suggestions from regulators. The partnership, Farmer says, is now close to submitting its response.  

Cleaning up the Wissahickon will take time – a long time. The current estimated timeline is at least 20 years, and that’s if there are no ripples along the way. 

Then again, the Wissahickon didn’t become “impaired” overnight. And just the fact that work is underway makes Farmer and everyone who cares about the Wissahickon hopeful. 

“I am optimistic that we are on the pathway to a better future for the Wissahickon Creek, “ she says. “Just getting on that pathway is difficult enough, and in my mind that is such a ‘win’ in terms of hope for a future for the Wissahickon. If we are going to get a healthy, improved Wissahickon Creek, this is how it has to happen. It is happening, and that gives me hope.”