Undiveable river: let's hear your ideas!

[willong]

Will,
You probably just saved a few rookie's their lives, or at least several minutes of possible panicky terror. Exercising the silent proxy votes of their friends + loved ones.--Thanks.

Thanks Len.

Thanks to Harry for broaching the subject.

 

[GaryWL]

I do dive rivers and see more along the sides of the river rather than in the middle. The current tends to sweep items from the center of the river then they fall out of the current along the river edges.

 

[Bohdan]

I posted once about a river near my home that is entirely undiveable--or only safe for trained search and recovery divers. There's a ton of boat traffic, a decent current, and very little visibility. Some people suggested getting a long clam rake and going out on a boat to scrape the bottom. I plan on trying that come spring, but here are some details because I can't find a clam rake that's long enough or somebody who welds. Let me know your ideas!


The gage depth varies between 8 to 15 ft. The brightest idea would be to go after a long dry spell, no? There's also the question of where to look. The river is probably a quarter-mile wide and another river flows into it. That other river, let's call it River B, used to have the first city dump on its banks. What didn't burn got thrown into the river back then. All along both rivers, residents would throw their trash into the water before public sanitation, so it's likely that there's 10-15 miles of river that could have some treasure. Where should I focus my attention? At the confluence of the two rivers? At the deepest point of the river? How much do bottles move beneath the water? I'm not sure of the composition of the riverbed, unfortunately, so I can't take that into consideration; I do believe it's muddy/silty though. And the flow is 16-50 kcfs.

Thanks in advance

Give it up ...bad idea.

 

[Harry Pristis]

I do dive rivers and see more along the sides of the river rather than in the middle. The current tends to sweep items from the center of the river then they fall out of the current along the river edges.

This is a good observation for a number of reasons.
First, the current is faster in the center of the river, slower along the shoreline. Bottles and other things that may float even briefly will tend towards the slower water along the shore.
Second, boats travel along the center of the river, so, if you're throwing an empty bottle into the river, you're throwing it towards the shore.
Third, if you are on the bank picnicking, fishing, or dumping your trash, your empty bottles will wind up not far from the bank.

 

[DeepSeaDan]

This is a good observation for a number of reasons.
First, the current is faster in the center of the river, slower along the shoreline. Bottles and other things that may float even briefly will tend towards the slower water along the shore.
Second, boats travel along the center of the river, so, if you're throwing an empty bottle into the river, you're throwing it towards the shore.
Third, if you are on the bank picnicking, fishing, or dumping your trash, your empty bottles will wind up not far from the bank.

I'm with you guys, but the disposition of finds in most of my rivers ( course granite sand ), depends partly on obstructions on the bottom and how the current moves the sand around as it is deflected by the heavy obstructions. I make finds along the breadth of the river in many instances.

I have found a lot of great bottles in 3-4 feet of water, - it seems some folks just didn't have the energy to toss their cast-offs too far out. Most dumps I find are riverbank, but I've found a few dumps farther out into the river, likely because folks would deposit their trash farther out onto the ice in winter; when Spring arrived, the ice would melt & the trash would conveniently disappear.

 

[Harry Pristis]

One reason that bottles can be found closer to the center of the river is that rivers meander . . . that is, the riverbank can retreat (and advance, of course).

This jar was recovered closer to the center of the river than to the riverbank. It was just lying there, with an early champagne bottle nearby, on an exposed limestone surface. But, these are exceptions in my experience.

 

[MountainMan304]

Hi everyone, thanks so much for all of the input here. The river had counter-erosion measures taken, so now (and for the past few decades) there have been large boulders placed on the steep banks. I may just take a walk down by the waterline to see if I see anything sometime soon, but I believe they dredged the river around that time as well. I'm assuming that means most everything is gone or broken, with no idea as to where they might have taken the dredged soil.

 

[gdcwatt]

I often snorkel in our small lake, looking for more broken glass after finding enough of it near my dock and on the shore: frightening! We're on a lee shore, and underwater it's sandy in the places where there are not just rocks. Underwater visibility is much better after a couple of days of calm weather, and being able to see 6-8 ft down is considered "clear", so I usually just follow the shore; I've fallen out of a canoe in the local river but there's no point in looking for anything there. I've learned to look for things that are symmetrical, that have perfectly straight edges, or are perfectly circular - like the edge or end of a bottle. I regularly go under so I'm 1-3 ft from piles of rocks, grabbing them to hold myself down, especially if I'm wearing a wetsuit, which helps me stay under longer. I am continually amazed at how many bottles manage to jam themselves neck-down into a bunch of rocks, but my eyes recognize something in their colour and shape looks unnatural. Moving sand is difficult, although I've tried using my fins, but after a massive storm I have found bottles that were not visible before. Swimming over sand, even if I can't actually see the bottle, I might still see its silhouette through 70 or 80 years of sediment. Once, during the rebuilding of our boathouse, the inspector told me to find some more rocks, so put on my construction boots and a tank, and as I walked on the bottom away from the old jetty (rocks under water weigh less) my feet churned up an old soda bottle out of the sand: I know they are down there.