newbold island

Circumnavigating Newbold Island sums up the Delaware Watershed experience. A grass-covered garbage dump rises behind a bulk cargo terminal and once fueled a power plant with methane. It pretends to be a Scotch highland now. There is some version of history with Pennsbury manor, the recreation of William Penn’s home while in America. South of the island, a vast stone embankment protects the river from whatever toxins were left by a Roebling wire factory, now a park. A power company owns Newbold Island, once studied as a location for a nuclear power plant, never built. On the shipping channel side is a gently sloping, kayak-friendly beach. On the west side, one threads a channel through freshwater wetlands, chasing egrets as one goes. The island is uninhabited and covered with vegetation.

July 2021