By Kate Dolan

What is happening at the Wissahickon Park, near Devil’s Pool?

On Saturday, August 1, about 30 young people took turns doing flips and dives off the rock towering more than 15 feet above Devils Pool, a small basin where the Cresheim Creek meets the Wissahickon Creek.

On its rocky shore, more than 50 people spread out in clusters, sitting and talking in the sun. People wade in and out of the creek. A rope swing sends kids into the water. Swimmers that afternoon included a dog and a toddler. There was music and laughter. The sound of a Devils Pool jump, a hard splash, one after one, is a rhythmic constant. There are very few phones out (although telling from the expansive social media spread of Devils Pool images, phones are present). The surface of the water is smooth, rippling softly only where people swim.

The summer scene is not unusual, but this year, the Wissahickon Park has seen a significant increase in visitors, bringing with it concerns and complaints from park-side neighborhood residents, park goers, park groups and the city, largely focused on the Devil’s Pool and Valley Green Inn areas of the park. Trash is at the top of the list.

On Saturday, Corona bottles lay in the dirt. Two geese sat beside the creek among plastic wrappers and bottles. A white garbage bag split open spills onto wavy rock above the creek. Discarded underpants and socks lay in clumps along a trail and below, there is a broken folding chair at the water’s edge.

“It’s nice that they are using the park, but what they leave behind is destructive,” said Cathy Connolly, a Chestnut Hill resident who’s been visiting the park for years. Connolly described hundreds of visitors coming to the park for the day on the weekends.

“They come in packed cars and vans, unload tables, chairs, coolers, grills, propane tanks, boom boxes, pool toys and their pets,” she said in an email to the Local. “They setup for the day. When they leave, they leave their trash behind.”

Connolly considers the Wissahickon “our backyard.” “We feel like it’s ours,” she said of the park that her and her husband visit all the time, biking and hiking its trails. They were married there, at a gazebo on the White Trail. They take care of it, routinely picking up garbage. Last week they collected two trash bags on the White Trail and cleaned graffiti off of the gazebo and painted it.

“Some people are very angry, I’m not angry, I am just so sad,” said Connolly. “I feel very personal about this space. I don’t know what the answer is.”

Swimming in prohibited areas of the creek is another concern. The water is dangerous and unsuitable for swimming. A 2017 post on the Friends of the Wissahickon’s website explains the risk.

“Strong currents can lead to drowning, submerged objects can cause severe injury when jumping into the water, and poor water quality can result in skin infections and/or gastro-intestinal distress,” reads the post, titled Summer Safety in the Wissahickon.

The Wissahickon Park is a public park, open to all visitors from anywhere, and its use is promoted and encouraged by FOW and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation. The issues of trash and swimming are not new, but this year is presenting new challenges.

“It’s been a real problem at Devils Pool, but this year, it’s different,” said Connolly. "It’s up and down the creek.”

The pandemic has left city pools closed, shore trips highly discouraged and the state’s unemployment rate at 13%. With 90-degree temperatures stretching out for days, making last month the third hottest July on record since 1871, as reported this week by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the park is a free and beneficial resource, “a vital lifeline for thousands of residents,” said Parks and Rec. Commissioner Kathryn Ott Lovell in a July 24 press release.

“Wissahickon Valley Park and all of Philadelphia’s watershed parks have seen a sharp increase in visitation since March,” reads the press release. The impacts of this led Parks & Rec. to dispatch social distancing ambassadors on the weekend of July 25 to “educate and remind residents of safe and responsible park usage.

“Our social distancing ambassadors handed out over 500 masks, garbage bags for residents to collect and carry out their trash, and information about park rules and no swimming reminders,” said Maita Soukup, a spokesperson for Parks & Rec.

Signs were placed at park entrances to inform visitors of park rules, which read as such, in both English and Spanish: No grills, No swimming or bathing, No swim apparel, No large coolers, No alcohol, No smoking, No amplified sound. For trash, the Wissahickon implements a “carry in/carry out” policy.

“That means packing your trash and recyclables out with you all the way home and using your own receptacles to dispose of them properly,” said Friends of the Wissahickon executive director Ruffian Tittmann in an email. “If you're unable to take it with you, please bring your trash to a park trash can.” In 2019, staff and volunteers of FOW collected 11.6 tons of trash from the park.

Parking is also an issue and illegal parking can block emergency vehicle access. Parks & Rec. are collaborating with the police department to address the issue. This Saturday and Sunday, a police vehicle blocked access to Livesey Lane.

The abundance of cars with New Jersey and New York license plates spotted illegally parked on Wises Mill Road and Livesey Lane in July, have given rise to assertions that out-of-staters are responsible for much of the trash, from Connolly and from users of the neighborhood social media platform, Nextdoor.

Last month, on at least two threads on Nextdoor, residents of various northwest Philadelphia neighborhoods cited illegal parking, swimming in prohibited areas, loud music, grilling, fireworks, trash and COVID-19 safety guideline violations, such as mask usage and social distancing, as all occurring in plain sight at the Wissahickon.

The tone on Nextdoor is a mix of frustration, desperation and dismay. Residents report scenes of park misuse and rule breaking, they lament the trashing of the park, they look for answers, and some blame out-of-staters. An accusation of classism and elitism is met with comments expressing that the matter is simply one of being considerate and taking care of the environment. Many agree that visitors just need to follow the rules.

“I understand people's concerns but also have great sympathy with those living in crowded conditions needing a place to cool off. The solution is to provide alternatives,” one comment reads.

“The solution is to follow the rules,” a reply reads.

Neighbors question how people could swim in the creek and suggest more posts circulate on social media to emphasize the poor water quality and dangerous conditions.

At the park, there are signs for no swimming and COVID-19 social distancing precautions. There are signs about carrying out trash. The signs are not big or obtrusive.

On Saturday, Jordan Bergman and Nik Bush came to enjoy the Wissahickon from New Jersey, where they live.

“Jersey is boring, it has nothing like this,” said Bush. “I grew up in the sticks, I’m an outdoors guy.”

Neither knew that swimming in the Wissahickon was prohibited or dangerous.

A family of three sat on the rocks with their dog. They declined to give the Local their names but said they had visited the park to do something nice for the day. They drove from Plymouth Meeting where they live. They didn’t swim but the father recalled swimming in Devils Pool as a kid.

Whether social distancing is happening is difficult to discern. The Philadelphia Health Department’s guidelines prohibit outdoor gatherings of 50 people or more, “even with masks and distancing,” reads the city’s reopening guidance on social gatherings.

“There’s so many people it’s very hard to say where a group ends and another one begins,” says Connolly.

The health department’s message is clearly lost on the crowds at Devil’s pool where laughing, unmasked people might make one even forget the existence of COVID-19 all together.