| Forge River | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | |
| Country | United States of America |
| Region | Mastic and Moriches, New York |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | |
| • location | Moriches Bay |
| Mouth | |
• coordinates | 40°46′38″N72°48′39″W / 40.77722°N 72.81083°W |
| Length | 3.2 nmi (5.9 km) |
Forge River is a partially mixed estuary on the south shore of Long Island in the township of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York.
Forge River (which was once called the Wegonthotak River [1] ) is the major tributary of Moriches Bay, a part of Long Island's south shore bay system that is protected from the Atlantic Ocean by outer barrier islands. The river is a remnant stream bed cut through the southerly sloping glacial out-wash plain deposited during the Wisconsin glaciation that ended some 20,000 years ago. The stream valley flooded as sea level rose.
It now functions as a small estuary. Circulation in the river is complex and is driven by a variety of forces including the tides, water column density structure, groundwater discharge, stream flow, and wind.
The tidal portion of the river is 3.2 nautical miles long that ends abruptly at Montauk Highway which serves as a dam between the river towns of Mastic and Moriches New York.
Two freshwater ponds (East Mill Pond and West Mill Pond) continuously discharge to the tidal Forge at this location. The surface watershed of the river is 10,641 acres (43.06 km2).[ citation needed ] About 20 percent of the watershed is in the deep groundwater recharge zone.
The river is shallow throughout and has been historically so. The mean depths in much of the center of the river were about 4–4.5 ft at mean low water. The centerline, mean depth, based on the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) survey of 2007–2008, is 4.9–6.6 ft. The depth now is slightly deeper in some locations than indicated on the previous surveys because a 70-m-wide (75-yd-wide) channel has been dredged to a design depth of 7 feet (2.1 m).
Tributaries of the river including Wills Creek, Poospatuck Creek, Lons Creek, and Home Creek on the west side of the Forge have been dredged as well.
The depths in these creeks can be as great as 6.6 feet (2.0 m). A sill has built up at the mouths of these tributaries so that each one acts as a small basin in which circulation is limited. The same is true for Old Neck Creek on the east side of the river.
The upland community of the William Floyd Estate provides habitat for breeding American woodcock (Scolopax minor) and a variety of migrating and nesting songbirds, while adjacent tidal areas afford habitat for nesting American bittern (Botarus lentiginosus), seaside sparrow, and osprey. This area is one of the few remaining sites on the south shore of Long Island where tidal wetlands are contiguous with an undeveloped upland buffer.
The impairment of Moriches Bay was linked with the growth of the duck ranching industry decades earlier along the Forge and other tributaries of region. Duck farm activities were identified as a primary source of pollution to Moriches Bay in several studies conducted by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) investigators between 1950 and 1959.[ citation needed ]
One of several measures used to attribute duck ranching with intense pollution problems was the unusually high amounts of duck-derived phosphorus in waters proximate to duck farming sites.[ citation needed ]
The last of the farms, the Jurgielewicz Duck Farm (founded in 1919) closed in August 2011 after declaring bankruptcy. At its peak, the 65 acre farm (which was a landmark on the Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road) claimed to be America's largest free-range duck operation, raising 1 million Pekin ducks a year. [2]
Suffolk County is the easternmost county in the U.S. state of New York, constituting the eastern two-thirds of Long Island. It is bordered to its west by Nassau County, to its east by Gardiners Bay and the open Atlantic Ocean, to its north by Long Island Sound, and to its south by the Atlantic Ocean.
Mastic is a hamlet and a census-designated place (CDP) in the southeastern part of the town of Brookhaven in central Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 15,481 at the 2010 census.
Mastic Beach is a hamlet and census-designated place, and former village in the southeastern part of the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 14,849 at the 2010 census, when it was an unincorporated census-designated place for the first time.
Moriches is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Suffolk County town of Brookhaven, New York, United States. The population was 2,838 at the 2010 census.
Brookhaven, formally the Town of Brookhaven, is a large suburban town in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. With a population of 488,497 as of 2022, it is the second most populous town in the United States and in New York and the third most populous community in the state.
Montauk Highway is an east–west road extending for 95 miles (153 km) across the southern shore of Long Island in Suffolk County, New York, in the United States. It extends from the Nassau County line in Amityville, where it connects to Merrick Road, to Montauk Point State Park at the very eastern end of Long Island in Montauk. The highway is known by several designations along its routing, primarily New York State Route 27A (NY 27A) from the county line to Oakdale and NY 27 east of Southampton. The portion of Montauk Highway between Oakdale and Southampton is mostly county-maintained as County Route 80 and County Route 85.
Smith Point County Park is a beachfront park facing the Atlantic Ocean on the east end of Fire Island, along the central south shore of Long Island, near Shirley, New York, United States. It is the largest park owned by Suffolk County.
The South Shore of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York, is the area along Long Island's Atlantic Ocean shoreline.
The Mastic–Shirley station is a station on the Long Island Rail Road's Montauk Branch in Shirley, New York. This station is reached via William Floyd Parkway. The station has two ticket machines.
New York's 2nd congressional district is a congressional district for the United States House of Representatives along the South Shore of Long Island, New York. It includes southwestern Suffolk County and a small portion of southeastern Nassau County. The district is currently represented by Republican Andrew Garbarino.
County Route 46 (CR 46) is a major county road in eastern Suffolk County, New York, in the United States. It runs south-to-north from CR 75 in Smith Point County Park to New York State Route 25A (NY 25A) near the border of Shoreham and Wading River. The road is known as the William Floyd Parkway along its entire length, and is named after William Floyd, a Long Island native and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Despite its "parkway" designation within the State of New York, the road is open to commercial vehicles.
The Sag Harbor Branch was a branch of the Long Island Rail Road that was the eastern terminal on the south shore line of Long Island from 1869 to 1895 and then was a spur from Bridgehampton to Sag Harbor, New York from 1895 to 1939.
Patchogue Bay is a lagoon on the south-central shores of Long Island in the U.S. state of New York.
The Swan River is in Suffolk County on Long Island, New York. It flows into Swan Lake from the north, and then south out of the lake into the mouth of Patchogue Bay, which then becomes the Great South Bay. Originally, the headwaters reached as far north as Medford, New York, near the vicinity of the Long Island Rail Road's Medford station. Swan River is a relatively clean, cold, free flowing, freshwater stream, generally less than 15 feet wide, with a sandy substrate. This segment of the river flows through much undeveloped forested wetland, but has also been encroached upon by residential development, road construction, and a commercial sand mining operation. Below Montauk Highway, the river is tidal, and is bordered by undeveloped marshland and limited development of boat docking facilities. The fish and wildlife habitat encompasses the entire river, including an approximate one and one-half mile tidal segment, and an approximate two and one-half mile freshwater segment, which extends from Swan Lake, above Montauk Highway, to the headwaters of the stream, above Swan Lake, flowing southward into Patchogue Bay.
Moriches Bay is a lagoon system on the south shore of Long Island, New York. The name Moriches comes from Meritces, a Native American who owned land on Moriches Neck.