Every morning when Bill Cornell wakes up, he looks out the window of his Wormleysburg home, and it’s there.
Some days, it’s flat and placid; others days it’s windswept and wavy. Nonetheless, the Susquehanna River is always there, just across the road from his front porch.
“Our river is truly a national treasure, something we need to save and protect,” said Cornell, a past president of the Harrisburg Riverboat Society.
Cornell’s river reverence involves more than just words. He is founder and director of the Susquehanna River School, a floating classroom for students of all ages focusing on the history and natural wonders of the Susquehanna, which runs a total of 444 miles between Cooperstown, N.Y., and the Chesapeake Bay.
He also initiated the Save Our Susquehanna, or SOS, campaign, an effort involving like-minded people, businesses and non-profit entities seeking greater protection of the river.
For Cornell’s work with SOS, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission recently awarded him its first-ever “Resource First Award.”
“Bill was an easy choice for this award,” said John Arway, the Fish and Boat Commission’s executive director. “He’s been a staunch supporter of the bass in the river. ‘Resource First’ is shorthand for our mission. It really means ‘protect, conserve and enhance our community’s resources.’”
It’s Not Enough
Two years ago, Cornell launched an SOS online petition drive to encourage state officials to clean up, save and protect the Susquehanna River.
The effort’s main goal is getting the state Department of Environmental Protection to list the river as an impaired waterway “so that real clean up can begin,” as the SOS website states. It also suggests using funds from a fracking severance tax for cleanup and protection of the river and its tributaries.
“After 20 years, I came to realize (the Susquehanna River School) is not enough,” said Cornell, explaining why he started SOS.
Arway was so impressed with Cornell’s SOS that he initiated a sister branch of the operation through the Fish and Boat Commission last June. The commission’s goal is to raise $50,000 in private donations that it plans to match. So far, $30,000 has been raised, Arway said.
The Fish and Boat Commission’s SOS project has several goals, including identifying possible contamination sites and working with willing farmers and colleges and universities to test soils and reduce nutrient and sediment runoff into the river. This could control nuisance algae blooms that produce low oxygen levels and high pH conditions harmful to young bass.
Another goal is to work with physicians and hospitals throughout the river basin to keep pharmaceutical drugs and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals out of the river because of the harmful effects on fish.
Coincidentally, it was Arway who snapped the notorious photo of a locally caught smallmouth bass bearing a large cancerous tumor in November 2014, an image that went viral. The Susquehanna’s young bass population has been plagued over the last decade by illness and elevated mortality rates due to river contamination, he said.
“The stuff that’s really hurting our rivers now you can’t see,” Cornell observed. “This used to be a bass fishing hot spot. Now it’s catch and release.”
Warming Up
Besides SOS, Cornell may be best known for starting the Susquehanna River School, a river-based environmental classroom that operates during the summer.
“The best way to learn about this is to get out on the river,” Cornell said. “It’s not something that’s taught in our schools.”
In fact, the River School was developed for Harrisburg school students, but now is open to anyone who wants to learn about the river.
“This is the longest river in the eastern United States,” Cornell said. “It has a tremendous history. Archeological digs have uncovered all sorts of artifacts. It proved that Native Americans lived on the shores of our river 10,000 years ago.”
Until now, all of the River School’s 75-minute cruises have taken place aboard the Pride of the Susquehanna riverboat, but that is scheduled to change in June, Cornell said. Earlier this year, the Riverboat Society purchased a sister boat from the Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. Cornell found the 34-foot Sea Ark aluminum launch for sale on eBay.
“This can operate in 13 inches of water,” said Cornell. “It will be used for eco tours because it can go to places that the riverboat can’t.”
He then paused a minute to reflect on this new chapter of river exploration.
“I’m excited as all get-go,” he said. “I’m 63. I’d like to think that, at an age when other people would be consumed with retirement, I’m just warming up.”
To access Bill Cornell’s Save Our Susquehanna petition, visit www.sospennsylvania.org.
For information about the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission’s Save our Susquehanna program, visit www.fishandboat.com/sos.htm.
For information about the Susquehanna River School, call 717-234-6500, visit www.harrisburgriverboat.com/riverschool or email info@harrisburgriverboat.com. You also may visit the Facebook page: The Susquehanna River School.
