Buffalo River (New York) - Geography

Geography

The Buffalo River flows westward from the point of confluence, passing through residential and heavily industrialized parts of the city. 6.2 miles of the river are a federal navigation channel maintained by the United States Army Corps of Engineers at a depth of 23 feet below lake level (along with an additional 1.4 miles of the City Ship Canal). Because of this designation, bridges in the navigable part of the river are required to allow for passage of high vessels, and many of them are draw bridges. The very low hydraulic gradient of the river along with the dredging gives the river an estuarine-like character. Much of the shoreline is hardened by riprap, bulkheads and other structures, and little vegetation remains along the banks. The river enters the lake between a United States Coast Guard station and the Erie Basin Marina. The grounds of the Coast Guard station include the Buffalo Main Light, established in 1833.

The mouth of the river where it meets the lake is part of the Port of Buffalo, and is able to take on larger vessels. The Port was expanded to include the City Ship Canal and its extension, the Lehigh Valley Canal. Some of the canals have now been filled in, and the ponds at Tifft Farm Nature Preserve in the southwest corner of the city, although now no longer connected, originally were part of this canal system and were used by the Lehigh Valley Railroad as a terminal facility. The Army Corps of Engineers dredges the River and the City Ship Canal every two to three years, removing about 100,000 cubic yards of sediment. Dredging sediment is placed in a confined disposal facility located on Lake Erie near the former Bethlehem Steel facility. In 2011 and 2012 a more extensive dredging effort was undertaken as part of the Buffalo River Restoration Project to remove contaminated sediment from from both the navigable waterway and from an upstream part of the Buffalo River that is not normally dredged.