The Pocatalico’s Dirty Bottom—and the Sediment Buried Beneath It
To the Editor:
Imagine 248 of the world’s largest cruise ships placed bow-to-stern along the Pocatalico River. Using the same illustrative assumptions, those ships would stretch approximately 56.2 miles. The Pocatalico is reported to be 67.7 miles long; after excluding its uppermost 10 miles of headwaters, the ships would cover approximately 97 percent of the remaining river. That comparison represents the cumulative weight of sediment that may have remained within the Pocatalico watershed from 1988 through 2025—if a federal sediment estimate published more than 50 years ago remained accurate.
This concern did not begin with speculation today. The federal Pocatalico River Basin Joint Survey, developed between 1969 and 1973, reported that the Pocatalico River, Middle Fork, Left Fork and Flat Fork had been described in 1911 as having “good clean bottoms of gravel, rock ledges, and rubble” and supporting an “outstanding fishery resource.”
By the time of the federal survey approximately 60 years later, that physical condition had already changed dramatically. The report stated that deforestation, cultivation of land too steep for agriculture, and erosion from roads and streambanks had accelerated natural erosion. It then reached an unmistakable conclusion:
“Sand and silt have covered much of the original stream bottoms and once deep pools are nearly filled with sediment.”
The survey also reported that the streams remained highly turbid after heavy rains and that these conditions created an unstable environment for aquatic life and reduced stream productivity. In other words, the federal government documented disappearing stream bottoms and filling pools more than 50 years ago.
1911: Clean bottoms of gravel, rock ledges and rubble, with an outstanding fishery.
1969–1973: Sand and silt covering much of the original bottoms, once-deep pools nearly filled, and streams highly turbid after rain.
Today: Another half-century of roads, timbering, mining, oil and gas development, land disturbance, flooding, four-wheelers and side-by-sides—with no comprehensive modern survey showing how much additional sediment accumulated or how much channel and flood-storage capacity has been lost.
The 1973 Pocatalico River Basin Joint Survey and Final Environmental Statement estimated that approximately 800,000 short tons of sediment were produced within the watershed annually, while only about 80,000 tons left the basin for downstream areas. If the difference remained somewhere within the watershed, it would equal approximately 720,000 short tons per year.
Extended from 1988 through 2025, that historical comparison equals approximately 27.36 million short tons—the weight represented by those 248 giant cruise ships.
This does not prove that all 27.36 million tons are presently lying in the Pocatalico River. Sediment moves, settles, washes downstream, enters floodplains and is sometimes carried into the Kanawha River. But the federal estimate raises a question that should concern everyone living within this watershed:
Where did all that sediment go?
Some may be stored in Woodrum Lake. Some may have accumulated at tributary mouths, behind bridges and low-water crossings, along floodplains, and inside the river channels, deep fishing holes and swimming holes that local families remember from childhood.
The date of the federal report is especially important. It was published in 1973—nine years before Suzuki introduced what it identifies as the first four-wheel ATV in 1982. It also came approximately 30 years before Yamaha introduced its Rhino side-by-side in the United States in 2003. The historical sediment estimate therefore predates decades of widespread four-wheeler and side-by-side activity, including trail construction, hill climbing, spinning tires, deeply rutted trails, disturbed streambanks and direct driving through creeks.
That does not mean ATV activity created all the sediment. Road construction and maintenance, timbering, mining, oil and gas development, agriculture, failing streambanks, residential development and natural erosion must also be examined. But modern off-road vehicle disturbance could not have been fully represented in a 1973 estimate made before four-wheel ATVs and recreational side-by-sides existed.
These calculations should not be mistaken for an upper limit. If anything, they may understate present conditions because they extend an estimate developed more than 50 years ago, before many later forms of watershed disturbance. Residents do not need a committee vote to recognize that formerly deep fishing and swimming holes are now shallow or filled. Just as one person can observe that an object is green without first measuring its exact wavelength, local residents can document visible sediment and physical changes without possessing specialized equipment. Scientific measurements are needed to determine the precise depth, volume, composition and source of the deposits—and especially to establish responsibility for damages—not to make the deposits real.
Woodrum Lake itself was designed to capture sediment. The federal plan reserved 326 acre-feet for sediment storage and projected that Site 28 would reduce downstream sediment by approximately 5,263 short tons annually. Yet we have not located a publicly available modern survey showing how much sediment has actually accumulated in the lake, how much storage remains or what deposits exist where Middle Fork, Second Creek, Pigeonroost Run and Laurel Fork enter the reservoir.
The same unanswered questions apply throughout the watershed. How much sediment has accumulated in the Pocatalico River and tributaries such as Frogs Creek? Has it reduced channel capacity? Does it cause water to rise higher or back farther into tributaries during floods? Has sediment filled the deep pools where earlier generations swam, fished and collected bait?
We need present-day measurements—not assumptions. That means sediment probing, current river cross-sections, tributary-mouth surveys, Woodrum Lake bathymetry, historical photographs and comparisons with the original federal plans.
The cruise-ship comparison is not proof of where the sediment rests. It illustrates the enormous scale of the federal government’s own historical estimate. The purpose of bringing this information before the public is to begin an honest watershed-wide investigation.
The creeks and fishing holes we knew as children did not disappear without a physical cause. It is time to find out what filled them, where that material originated and whether the accumulated sediment is now contributing to our flood risk.
Walter Hammack
Environmental Community Activist
Sissonville, West Virginia
Copyright © 2026 Walter Hammack. All rights reserved.
Article, original analysis, commentary and presentation credited to Walter Hammack. Cited government data and other source material remain attributed to their respective sources.