Merrimack River

Merrimack River
River at Pembroke, NH
Data
Water code	US :  619363
location	New Hampshire , Massachusetts (USA)
River system	Merrimack River
Confluence of	Pemigewasset River and Winnipesaukee River 43 ° 26 ′ 11 "  N , 71 ° 38 ′ 53"  W
Source height	84  m
muzzle	Atlantic Ocean Coordinates: 42 ° 49 ′ 10 "  N , 70 ° 48 ′ 43"  W 42 ° 49 ′ 10 "  N , 70 ° 48 ′ 43"  W
Mouth height	0  m
Height difference	84 m
Bottom slope	0.47 ‰
length	177 km
Catchment area	12,825 km² (of which 3,072  km² in Massachusetts)
Drain	MQ	215 m³ / s
Left tributaries	Soucook River , Suncook River , Cohas Brook , Beaver Brook , Spicket River , Powwow River
Right tributaries	Contoocook River , Piscataquog River , Souhegan River , Nashua River , Salmon Brook , Stony Brook , Concord River , Shawsheen River
Big cities	Manchester
Medium-sized cities	Concord , Nashua , Lowell , Lawrence , Haverhill
River basin of the Merrimack River
Industrial buildings at Merrimack in Lowell, MA

The Merrimack River (historically also Merrimac ) is a 177 km long river in the US states of New Hampshire and Massachusetts .

Its catchment area is around 12,900 km². The mean discharge is 215 m³ / s.

geography

The Merrimack has two headwaters: the Pemigewasset River , which rises in Profile Lake in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the Winnipesaukee River , the outflow of Lake Winnipesaukee . These two rivers meet at Franklin, NH to form the Merrimack River. The Merrimack initially flows south and before the Worm Ice Age it flowed into the Atlantic near what is now Boston. After the retreat of the glaciers and the deposition of glacial debris on the middle reaches the river changed its course and now turns eastwards at Lowell, MA and finally flows into the Atlantic at Newburyport, MA north of Boston.

Tributaries

The two source rivers and the main tributaries of the Merrimack River downstream:

No.	Surname	Bank side of the confluence	Catchment area in km²	location
00	Pemigewasset River	right	2644	NH
00	Winnipesaukee River	Left	1264	NH
01	Contoocook River	right	1961	NH
02	Soucook River	Left	235	NH
03	Suncook River	Left	655	NH
04	Piscataquog River	right	554	NH
05	Cohas Brook	Left	179	NH
06	Souhegan River	right	438	NH
07	Nashua River	right	1377	NH
08	Salmon Brook	right	79	NH
09	Stony Brook	right	115	MA
10	Beaver Brook	Left	246	MA
11	Concord River	right	965	MA
12	Spicket River	Left	191	MA
13	Shawsheen River	right	200	MA
14th	Little River	Left	77	MA
15th	Powwow River	Left	148	MA

Hydropower plants

There are several hydropower plants along the Merrimac River.

A selection of the hydropower plants in the downstream direction:

Surname	Power in MW	Number of turbines	location	operator
Garvin's Falls	12.4	4th	( ⊙ )	Public Service Co of NH
Hooksett	1.6	1	( ⊙ )	Public Service Co of NH
Amoskeag	16	3	( ⊙ )	Public Service Co of NH
Boott	22.9	3	( ⊙ )	Boott Hydropower
Lawrence Hydroelectric Assoc	14.8	2	( ⊙ )	Lawrence Hydroelectric Assoc
Aquamac	0.25		( ⊙ )	Aquamac

history

The name of the river goes back to the word Merruasquamack ("place of the rapids"), with which the Native American Indians originally only referred to the section of the river on the middle course between today's cities of Manchester (New Hampshire) and Lowell. From the 1630s the valley was colonized by English Puritans. Newburyport was founded in 1635, Rowley in 1638. As industrialization progressed, the Merrimack became an important transportation route in the region. On the river, logs felled in the New Hampshire woods were rafted to the Newburyport shipyards . With the completion of the Middlesex Canal from Chelmsford to Charlestown , the Merrimack was connected to the Charles River and thus to the port of Boston in 1803 ; as a result, shipbuilding also shifted from Newburyport to Boston. However, shipping traffic on the canal was stopped in 1851 due to competition from the railways.

In the 19th century, many water-powered textile mills were built along the lower reaches of the Merrimack, and an extensive inner-city canal system was even built in Lowell. The valley developed into a center of the American textile industry, which numerous historical industrial buildings still bear witness to today.

For the American literary history is important Henry David Thoreau's travelogue A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers . Jack Kerouac's autobiographical novel Doctor Sax (1959) is one of the themes of the devastating floods of the Merrimac in March 1936.

Web links

Commons : Merrimack River  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

• Merrimack River: 5-year watershed action plan

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Winnipesaukee River in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey
2. ^ Merrimack River in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey
3. ↑ mass.gov Merrimack River Watershed
4. ^ Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Executive Office of Environmental Affairs: Merrimack River: A Comprehensive Watershed Assessment Report. (PDF) 2001, accessed January 12, 2011 . 
5. ^ Merrimack River: 5-year watershed action plan
6. ↑ workof1000.com ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ energyjustice.net
8. ↑ hydroreform.org