Patroon Creek
Encyclopedia
Patroon Creek is a stream
Stream
A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...

 in Albany County
Albany County, New York
Albany County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, and is part of the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area. The name is from the title of the Duke of York and Albany, who became James II of England . As of the 2010 census, the population was 304,204...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and is a tributary of the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

 which flows south to New York Harbor
New York Harbor
New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. It is one of the largest natural harbors in the world. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental,...

 and the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

. The creek's source
Source (river or stream)
The source or headwaters of a river or stream is the place from which the water in the river or stream originates.-Definition:There is no universally agreed upon definition for determining a stream's source...

 is Rensselaer Lake
Rensselaer Lake
Rensselaer Lake is an artificial lake in Albany, New York, United States named for Major-General Stephen Van Rensselaer, last patroon of Rensselaerswyck. The lake was Albany's first municipally-owned source of water. It is part of a park and the state's Albany Pine Bush Preserve...

 in the western section of the city of Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...

 and flows along the northern border of said city with the town of Colonie to its mouth at the Hudson River. The creek received its name from the patroon
Patroon
In the United States, a patroon was a landholder with manorial rights to large tracts of land in the 17th century Dutch colony of New Netherland in North America...

 of Rensselaerswyck.

History

Patroon Creek, starting with Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a prospective Northeast Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle...

's discovery of the Hudson River, was a part of the Dutch
United Netherlands
United Netherlands is an educational student-led organization that focuses on the theory and practice of international relations and diplomacy...

 colony New Netherland
New Netherland
New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the 17th-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the East Coast of North America. The claimed territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod...

 and the patroonship of Rensselaerswyck, founded in 1630. On the 1632 Map of Rensselaerswyck
Map of Rensselaerswyck
The Map of Rensselaerswyck is a map created during the 1630s, probably 1632, at the request of the owner of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, Dutch jeweler and patroon. Rensselaerswyck was the only successful patroonship within the colony of New Netherland, settled by the Dutch...

 the mouth of the Patroon Creek is labeled as "Bloommaert's Burt", and Patroon Creek gained the name of Bloomaert's Kill
Kill (body of water)
As a body of water, a kill is a creek. The word comes from the Middle Dutch kille, meaning "riverbed" or "water channel." The modern Dutch term is kil....

, kill being the Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 word for creek or stream. Another early name for the kill was Fifth Kill, it being the fifth (and final) kill (counting from the south) in the colonial Albany area. Early settlers in the 17th century included Gerrit Thensz de Reux who settled a farm on the Blommaerts Kill in 1632, and Rutger Jacobsz in 1645 and Adrian Hybertsz in 1647 who settled just north of the kill. In 1654 Jacob Jansz Flodder was the highest bidder for establishing grist and sawmills on the kill and Barent Pietersz Koeymans and Teunis Cornelisz van Spitsbergen obtained a lease for a sawmill higher up the kill. In 1666 Jeremias van Rensselaer
Jeremias van Rensselaer
Jeremias van Rensselaer was the third son of Kiliaen van Rensselear and the fourth patroon of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck.-Life:...

, the fourth patroon
Patroon
In the United States, a patroon was a landholder with manorial rights to large tracts of land in the 17th century Dutch colony of New Netherland in North America...

, established several barns and mills along the kill on what is now Tivoli Street. The Old Manor House was also built by the patroon just north of the creek near its mouth with the Hudson in 1666.

In 1844 the railroad between Albany and Schenectady
Schenectady, New York
Schenectady is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 66,135...

 east of Fuller Road was moved north from the central part of the city to the Tivoli Hollow Line which ran across the northern border of the city along Patroon Creek and through West Albany
West Albany, New York
West Albany is a hamlet in the town of Colonie, Albany County, New York. Parts of the neighboring city of Albany around Watervliet Avenue Extension and Industrial Park Road are also considered part of West Albany and includes the majority of the West Albany Rail Yard...

. The Albany and Schenectady Railroad
Albany and Schenectady Railroad
The Albany & Schenectady Railroad, originally the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad, was the first railroad built in the State of New York and one of the first railroads in the United States....

 which owned this line was merged with nine other railroads as the New York Central Railroad
New York Central Railroad
The New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...

 (NYCRR) in 1853, and work soon began on the establishment of a large rail yard, on 250 acres (1 km²) purchased in 1854 in West Albany.

In 1845 the Albany Waterworks Company purchased from the patroon Stephen van Rensselaer a portion of the Patroon Creek for use as a water supply. The Albany Waterworks was a private corporation and was replaced by a municipal water supply in 1850 which then purchased all the water sources from the Albany Waterworks. In 1851 the Patroon Creek was dammed by the city roughly 6 miles (9.7 km) from Albany City Hall
Albany City Hall
Albany City Hall is the seat of government of the city of Albany, New York. It houses the office of the mayor, the Common Council chamber, the city and traffic courts, as well as other city services. The current building was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson in his particular Romanesque style and...

 where three streams met to form the creek. The lake formed was named Rensselaer Lake in honor of Stephen van Rensselaer. Water from the lake passed through a 4 feet (1.2 m) tall and 4 miles (6.4 km) long brick pipe to the Bleecker Reservoir (now Bleecker Stadium
Bleecker Stadium
Bleecker Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Albany, New York. The stadium was once a reservoir for the Albany public water system. Today it has a baseball diamond, football/soccer field, and a softball field used by area high schools, colleges, and youth and adult leagues...

) where the water was used for the portion of the city west from Pearl Street to Lark Street
Lark Street
Lark Street is a historic street in Albany, New York. It is part of the "Arbor Hill, "Center Square", "Park South", and "Hudson/Park" neighborhoods, and is located one block east of Washington Park. Lark Street is home to many independently owned shops, coffee houses, restaurants, art galleries,...

. Also in 1851 dams were thrown across the lower portion of Patroon Creek to form the Lower and Upper Tivoli Lakes (upper for storage, lower for distribution), the water being from the tributaries that join the Patroon east of the Rensselaer Lake dam. Other reservoirs would be constructed on the creek and its tributaries, the Patroon Creek Reservoir at Russell Road and another north of there on the Sand Creek also next to Russell Road. The Tivoli Lakes supplied water to that portion of the city east from Pearl Street. In 1875 the Hudson River began to be used as the primary source of water, with the various reservoirs on the Patroon Creek as back-up. The Tivoli Lakes reservoirs were abandoned in 1910. The NYCRR West Albany Rail Yard
Rail yard
A rail yard, or railroad yard, is a complex series of railroad tracks for storing, sorting, or loading/unloading, railroad cars and/or locomotives. Railroad yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock stored off the mainline, so that they do not obstruct the flow of traffic....

 then became the sole user of the lower portion of Patroon Creek and its tributary the Sand Creek, mostly the water was used for industrial purposes. Rensselaer Lake was used as a water supply until 1926.

From the 1950s to 1998 Mercury Refining Company had a plant along an unnamed tributary to the Patroon Creek. Since 1983 the site has been on the Superfund
Superfund
Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 , a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances...

 pollution clean-up list. Several former customers of the plant including National Grid
National Grid
-Electric power transmission systems:*National Grid , the electricity transmission network of Great Britain.*National Grid , the electricity transmission network of Malaysia....

, Everready
Eveready Battery Company
Eveready Battery Company, Inc., headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, is an American manufacturer of battery brands Eveready and Energizer, owned by Energizer Holdings.-History:...

, and Union Carbide
Union Carbide
Union Carbide Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company. It currently employs more than 2,400 people. Union Carbide primarily produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers before reaching consumers. Some are high-volume...

 put up over $4 million for the clean-up being supervised by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Another industrial site that has polluted the Patroon Creek and its watershed is a factory owned by NL Industries (formerly National Lead). The factory recycled depleted uranium
Depleted uranium
Depleted uranium is uranium with a lower content of the fissile isotope U-235 than natural uranium . Uses of DU take advantage of its very high density of 19.1 g/cm3...

 into armor-piercing shot and shell
Armor-piercing shot and shell
An armor-piercing shell is a type of ammunition designed to penetrate armor. From the 1860s to 1950s, a major application of armor-piercing projectiles was to defeat the thick armor carried on many warships. From the 1920s onwards, armor-piercing weapons were required for anti-tank missions...

. The factory was closed in 1983 after it was found that its six smokestacks were contaminating the suburban neighorhood of Roessleville
Roessleville, New York
Roessleville is a hamlet in the town of Colonie, Albany County, New York. It is a densely settled suburb of the city of Albany along New York State Route 5...

 with uranium dust. As late as 2003 uranium was found in sediments by the US Army Corps of Engineers at many locations along the creek, most of those locations the level was below their cleanup criteria, but two locations within the creek near the NL site contained uranium concentrations above the criteria. Mercury has also been found in the creek downstream from the Superfund site and is being investigated by local college professors.

Prior to the establishment of Albany's modern sewer system with treatment plants in the 1970s the municipality routinely had sewer pipes outflow into the creeks around the city. In 2000 several office buildings around Everett Road were found to still be dumping into the Patroon Creek and the pipes were corked and the properties connected to the municipal sewer system.

In the 1970s the Patroon Creek was diverted around Tivoli Lake and the lake was dredged. In 2010 plans have begun to return the creek through the lake in order to increase the oxygen content and circulation of the lake, along with using the wetlands of the lake as a natural filter to clean the Patroon Creek. This plan has been opposed by groups representing the area around Tivoli Lake who fear that heavy metals
Heavy metals
A heavy metal is a member of a loosely-defined subset of elements that exhibit metallic properties. It mainly includes the transition metals, some metalloids, lanthanides, and actinides. Many different definitions have been proposed—some based on density, some on atomic number or atomic weight,...

 such as mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...

 and depleted uranium will be deposited in the lake and preserve.

In 1993 the creek was declared one of the state's ten worst polluted streams, with no significant living thing found except tube worms. By 1997 the creek had begun to improve, with minnows and crawfish, and in 1998 mayfly
Mayfly
Mayflies are insects which belong to the Order Ephemeroptera . They have been placed into an ancient group of insects termed the Palaeoptera, which also contains dragonflies and damselflies...

 were found which indicated better quality water. In 2001 Mayor Jerry Jennings
Gerald Jennings
Gerald David "Jerry" Jennings is the mayor of Albany, New York, United States. A Democrat, Jennings won a shocking upset in the 1993 mayoral primary over Harold Joyce, who had the Democratic Party’s formal endorsement and had only recently been its chairman. In 1993, he won the general election,...

 and Governor
Governor of New York
The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...

 George Pataki
George Pataki
George Elmer Pataki is an American politician who was the 53rd Governor of New York. A member of the Republican Party, Pataki served three consecutive four-year terms from January 1, 1995 until December 31, 2006.- Early life :...

 announced a proposed 8 miles (12.9 km) multi-use path between the Corning Preserve and the Albany Pine Bush by way of the Tivoli Nature Preserve
Tivoli Nature Preserve
The Tivoli Nature Preserve, also Tivoli Park, in Albany is the state of New York's second largest urban wildlife nature preserve after Central Park.-History:...

 along the Patroon Creek.

Geography

The Patroon Creek is 6.2 miles (10 km) long from a grate at the eastern end of Rensselaer Lake to a culvert that empties into the Hudson River. About 1/3 of the creek has been moved from its original course and/or buried in culverts since the 19th century to make way for railroads and highways. The creek passes through three nature preserves, the Albany Pine Bush at its source, the Tivoli Park Preserve, and the Corning Preserve at its mouth. The creek's watershed is roughly 5000 acres (2,023.4 ha). The watershed is in an urban environment with a population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

of 2,550 persons/mi² (965 persons/km²), and approximately 17% of the watershed is forested. The Sand Creek, which resides mostly in Colonie, is a major tributary with a watershed of 3 mi2.
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