Voting open until Jan. 16: River of the Year finalist Chillisquaque Creek offers microcosm of issues and opportunities for bigger Susquehanna River system

A serene spot along Chillisquaque Creek is where Blue Springs empty into the 20-mile tributary of the Susquehanna's West Branch, just above the town of Washingtonville. The historic bridge is around 125 years old and dates back to the Frank DeLong estate.

​The 20-mile-long Chillisquaque Creek may not be the largest Pennsylvania River of the Year finalist, but the tributary of the Susquehanna's West Branch is definitely symbolic of the greater river basin’s history, issues and potential to overcome those challenges with creative collaborative solutions, according to Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper John Zaktansky.

“Many times, you look at the bigger Susquehanna River and can quickly get overwhelmed with the scale and scope of everything that needs to be done. However, when you focus on a snapshot like the Chillisquaque Creek and the key partners and resources available in this area, then recognition of something like River of the Year truly can make a difference,” he said. “We can showcase some incredible work that already has been done, shine a light on some of the bigger issues and how to maybe look at them a little differently and breathe life and key awareness into the groups and individuals that deserve a jolt of fresh air.”

The creek joins the Conestoga River and Lower Schuylkill River as the three finalists for the 2026 Pennsylvania River of the Year award. Voting is open through Jan. 16, 2026, with the winning waterway receiving specialized awareness and funding for a sojourn and other key projects and events.

​Sean Reese, Program Scientist of the Watershed Sciences and Engineering Program at Bucknell University's Center for Sustainability and the Environment has lived in the greater Chillisquaque Creek watershed community for many years.

"I have an affinity for the Chilli and have been visiting/working/recreating on it for a long time now. I've taken many students to Chillisquaque Creek and its local watershed for numerous class projects and research opportunities," he said. "It supports a diverse network of wetlands and aquatic habitats that sustain numerous plant and wildlife species.  Its watershed plays a key role in filtering runoff, recharging groundwater, and maintaining ecological balance within the larger Susquehanna River system."

Chief among the communities along the creek is Washingtonville, a borough in Montour County named after George Washington and birthplace of eventual millionaire Frank DeLong, a famous inventor of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

“Chillisquaque Creek is a living historical document, blending its unique cultural heritage with a modern focus on environmental stewardship. Its history — from an 18th century Shawnee village at its confluence with the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, to five Revolutionary War forts adjacent to the creek, to three national register recognized 19th century covered bridges, to modern day natural landmarks like Mill Park, Blue Springs and the Montour Preserve — makes the creek a profoundly valuable asset,” said Washingtonville Mayor Tyler Dombroski. “A River of the Year designation is critical because it would unite the communities of the entire Chillisquaque watershed. It’s a chance to honor our common history and build partnerships that will protect this incredible resource for generations to come.”
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One of the big projects the River of the Year award would help impact is connectivity between the town of Washingtonville and the Susquehanna River. Currently, there are numerous log jams that make paddling from the borough’s kayak launch at Mill Park to the river extremely difficult.

“We are committed to working with local partners at the county conservation district offices, the Montour Area Recreation Commission, the Bucknell University and others to safely clear those obstructions and open up a new recreational passage to the river that would help connect people to our natural resources in exciting new ways,” said Zaktansky. “It also allows us to intentionally study the impacts of such obstructions and aquatic passageway opportunities along an extended area.”

Interactive watershed map

The following Chillisquaque Creek watershed map shows key features, including log jams that need to be addressed. The map was developed by the Montour Area Recreation Commission (MARC) in late 2021.

​Much of the Chillisquaque Creek has been historically considered impaired due to streambank sedimentation and nutrient runoff concerns. Officials at the Montour and Northumberland county conservation districts have been working in their areas of the waterway to reduce impacts with tree planting programs and engaging with local volunteers to remove trash and initiate other key programs.

One of the most influential efforts came via the Chillisquaque Limestone Watershed Association, formed in 2000 with a $5,000 startup grant from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Services, a small group of volunteers and a big slate of topics to tackle.

“The biggest concerns in our district are agricultural like streambank erosion and manure storage along with litter and trash dumps,” said Tom Benfer, the association’s president since its inception. “Through the fall of 2020, our group had pulled 27.865 tons of trash out of our streams and tire turn-in events have taken in 6,061 tires which isn’t even included in the nearly 28 tons of trash we’ve pulled.”

Of course, this sort of work comes at a cost.

“During our first-ever cleanup, we picked up 180 tires and 4.5 tons of trash and had to spend $1,452 in disposal fees,” Benfer said, and that doesn’t factor in the man hours and volunteer labor, something Benfer and his family have put in now for decades.

Last year, due to a dwindling number of older members and lack of younger support at monthly meetings and the ability to do more physical events, the Chillisquaque Limestone Watershed Association disbanded.

“We have seen this sort of trend across the larger Susquehanna watershed and the Chillisquaque again is a microcosm of a bigger issue we need to highlight and address,” said Zaktansky. “These smaller watershed groups are the lifeblood of clean water efforts in our communities, and we are excited about the opportunity through the River of the Year effort to have meaningful, realistic discussions about how to help reinvigorate and funnel vital resources to watershed groups that make such a huge impact across the region.

“We want to see Tom and his family and the group’s work and legacy of protecting this watershed continue in a new, sustainable way. This is an opportunity to build up a new generation of stewards from these communities, pass along the knowledge and experience from those who’ve done it before and pass the torch for continued waterway improvements for years to come.”

A section of Lake Chillisquaque is seen just above the dam across the middle branch of Chillisquaque Creek and the spillway around the dam. In the distance is the Montour Power Plant. Image by Michael Kinney.

​Beyond agricultural and sedimentation concerns, the Chillisquaque watershed is also home to industry – most notably the Montour Power Plant that recently converted from burning coal to natural gas.

In the 1970s, Pennsylvania Power and Light (PPL) built the 165-acre manmade Lake Chillisquaque on the middle branch of the Chillisquaque Creek as a backup cooling source for its coal-burning Montour Power Plant.

Not long afterward, the company developed the Montour Preserve around the lake as a way to give back to the local community. It included a nature preserve, hiking trails, large educational center with auditorium, a walk-through environmental education displays and an open fossil pit – all of which is still open to the public today despite a transfer of plant and preserve ownership to Talen Energy in 2015 thanks to the year-round maintenance of the property by the Montour Area Recreation Commission (MARC).

To support the group's efforts, especially as financial issues mounted in the summer of 2023, the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association helped develop the Vernal School Environmental Education Partnership, a collection of more than two dozen partnering agencies, nonprofits, universities and other groups committed to expanding programs and revitalizing field trips and opportunities for people of all ages to reconnect with natural resources at the preserve.

It also helped bring in financial resource for MARC and covered the addition of a new adaptive kayak launch on Lake Chillisquaque to improve accessibility for all paddlers to the resource, as well as recently saving and renovating a nature blind into an educational observatory on the lake's edge. Learn more about the programs, projects and other efforts of the Vernal School here.

"Culturally, Chillisquaque Creek has served for centuries as a meaningful landscape for the communities that live around it. Today, it remains a valued community resource, offering recreational opportunities such as fishing, bird-watching, and nature study, as well as housing the Montour Preserve in its watershed. The creek’s continued conservation is a point of local pride and stewardship, linking contemporary residents to their natural and historical heritage," said Reese. "Montour Preserve is an important pillar in the local community that families can utilize for picnics, school programs, and nature walks, making the creek a focal point for community gatherings and outdoor activities. Annual clean-up events, watershed projects and citizen-science initiatives reflect a continuing culture of stewardship and shaped my path in conservation from a very early age."

Pennsylvania Master Naturalist and longtime volunteer at the Montour Preserve Deb Steransky helps students tap trees during a maple sugaring program at the preserve -- a program that has spanned more than five decades along the banks of the Chillisquaque Creek.

The preserve is a hotspot not only for nature lovers and environmental education, but also an extremely diverse number of wildlife species.

“I always said that Montour Preserve had nothing special in the way of habitats, but what made Montour Preserve special was that it had a wide variety of habitats,” said naturalist Jon Beam, a longtime educator for the preserve. “From pine stands to deciduous woods to old fields, to grassy open areas to transitional stage shrub habitat, and, of course, the lake, ponds and some wetland areas.

“In just under 1,000 acres, that is quite a variety in habitat types and I think that is what makes the property so attractive to such a wide variety of birds and other wildlife.”

In fact, as of 2020, more than 230 different species of birds alone have been identified at the preserve, according to Beam, with more species likely since then.

“The diversity of the habitat and the relatively quiet, protected nature of the environment there is crucial,” said Bill Tyler of Seven Mountains Audubon, who shared this eBird link showing bird species from 2020-2024. “You especially have Lake Chillisquaque, the Goose Woods Pond, the Visitor Center Pond, the forested areas and the open fields.”

Concerns over contaminants from a coal ash basin at the power plant entering nearby groundwater led to a settlement agreement in 2021 between Talen Energy and the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association.

“In that agreement, we have extra protections and resources that include better testing of the aquifer that feeds the waterway and up to 30 years of surface water sampling quarterly of the Chillisquaque Creek system to watch for any influx or trends of contaminants that may show up over time,” said Zaktansky. You can see those results as they become available on this page.

“We also got them to eventually agree to long-term protections of the Montour Preserve, that when the nearby power plant no longer needs the water from Lake Chillisquaque, we will be involved in helping find a realistic long-term owner to which Talen must donate the property,” he added. “This means we can make sure that it stays a resource that best serves the local watershed and nearby communities and not bulldozed or sold highest bidder for some unexpected project that could pose a threat.”

In August, news started coming out about a request by Talen Energy to rezone hundreds of acres of nearby land from agricultural to industrial for an undisclosed project. Since then, information came out that the company is looking to rezone most likely to construct a data center and/or an expansion of the power plant. The county's planning commission ultimately recommended against the rezoning, but the ultimate decision will be made after a Jan. 23, 2026, public hearing in Montour County. More information on the situation, news articles, maps, etc., can be found and followed at this special Montour project page.

Kayakers paddle down Chillisquaque Creek in late fall of 2021 in this image provided by Tyler Dombroski.

Ultimately, if the Chillisquaque Creek wins the 2026 River of the Year recognition, a variety of opportunities and events are anticipated.

“We are excited to get this waterway more attention and be more accessible for paddlers to better appreciate its beauty and diversity. Once log jams are addressed, the goal later in the year will be a sojourn incorporating numerous partnering groups, businesses and individuals,” said Zaktansky. “We also plan to work with Washingtonville borough and the Montour Area Recreation Commission to offer additional opportunities for people to learn about the rich history here, to showcase what this area was built on and to help create revitalized effort to protect its future for generations to come.”

Online voting is open now through Jan. 16, 2026, giving Pennsylvanians the opportunity to choose among three nominated waterways — the Chillisquaque Creek, the Conestoga River, and the lower portion of the Schuylkill River in the greater Philadelphia region.

“Each of these worthy waterways makes a unique case to be the top river for 2026 and I am excited to see which one wins,” said Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn. “I enjoy this annual competition for the community pride it builds and focus it provides for the recreational, cultural, and economic importance of our rivers. Vote now and make your voice heard.”

For Reese, and the lifelong passion he has received from experiences along the Chillisquaque, taking a few moments to vote is definitely worth the time.

"Protecting the creek ensures the preservation of a natural and historical heritage that has shaped this area for years and would allow many more young conservationists the opportunity to grow their passion," he said.

Voting is available at this link until Jan. 16, 2026. The winner will be announced shortly thereafter. People are allowed one vote per email address. If you have any questions, please send an email to the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association.​