DAY THREE
SATURDAY, AUG. 12, 2006 By Dan Majors
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jon Lucadamo, his personality being as buoyant as the kayaks he rents to people under the Roberto Clemente Bridge on the North Shore, smiles as he buzzes around Camp Guyasuta taking care of loose ends and tidying up.

	Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Participants in the River of the Year Sojourn paddle the Allegheny River. Click photo for larger image.

It is the last day of the 2006 River of the Year Sojourn on Pittsburgh's three rivers, and Jon has been having such a great time putting it the event together that I expected him to be kind of melancholy this morning.

Especially when I look around and see that many of the sojourners who were with us Thursday on the Allegheny and Friday on the Monongahela have elected to pass today's outing on the Ohio and are already packed up and gone.

I'm a bit downhearted because during the past two days of boating and camping, I've gotten to know some of these people. It seems too early to say goodbye.

Jon grins and shrugs it off as he loads some more recyclable items into a bin. It's time to head down to the Carnegie Science Center on the North Shore of the Ohio for our trip aboard Pittsburgh Voyager.

The battleship-gray Pittsburgh Voyager is an old 80-foot boat that the U.S. Navy once used for training purposes. Six years ago, it became a nonprofit seagoing classroom for students to explore portions of our three rivers.

Today, after two days of paddling canoes and kayaks, the sojourners' river experience will be on more stable footing. Oh, it's still a boat, but it weighs 80 tons and has a captain and an engine and all the things most people look for in a boat.

Personally, I was ready for a paddle-free day. But some of the other sojourners are purists. As far as they're concerned, if they're not paddling on the water, it's not part of the sojourn.

I asked Jon why he and his fellow hosts decided to spend Day 3 this way.

"The thinking," he said, "was, 'We've got these three rivers that we use. The Allegheny is a paddleable river, no problem, we do it all the time. The Monongahela can be paddled. Not a lot of people do it, but it's a good way to see everything from a wading duck's-eye view.

"But the Ohio is something that we generally don't like to send paddlers down, because the currents are stronger and you have to come back up against them.

"And, more importantly than that was, this is a weekend and that means more recreational boaters are out there in their motorboats. They are not always as polite to paddlers as we'd like them to be. So, as the safety coordinator, I was uncomfortable with having a group of people out on the Ohio on a weekend.

"The Voyager crew and [executive director] Karl Thomas stepped up and said, 'We can handle this. It's a great opportunity to learn about our river in a safe way.' "

Upon arriving in the parking lot of the Carnegie Science Center, where Pittsburgh Voyager is docked, I see some of the other sojourners from the previous days. The head count comes in at about two dozen people, some of them newcomers with their children.

"At the same time as we lost paddlers, we gained people who are interested in the river, learning about it and finding out about environmental issues," Jon says. "Education is being done and the river is being helped. The more people know, the better decisions they can make regarding the rivers."

The sojourn, he reminds me, is as much about river education as it is about river recreation.

Once aboard, we head down the Ohio. Lisa Meadows, 31, of Baldwin, a member of the crew's education staff, is one of the first speakers to address our group. She talks about the river's aquatic life -- the birds, the fish, the turtles and other animals. There are binoculars, photos and bird books for us to use.

The boat banks around Brunots Island and the shallow, dirty mouth of Chartiers Creek, where it is nosed into the south shoreline. Here, the crew members scoop up a slimy, smelly sample of muck that we will take into the boat's classroom to analyze. Apparently, we'll be looking for mayflies and microscopic macroinvertebrates.

For some reason, my attention is drawn out to the river, where a guy on a jet ski is cutting sharp zigzags, his turns kicking up impressive sprays of water. He's wearing a black life jacket that makes him resemble the leather-vest-wearing biker that he probably wishes he was in real life.

I don't know what tough-guy motorcyclists think of jet skiers, but I'm betting that they don't hang out in the same clubs.

Meanwhile, Jenn Roberston, 34, of Bellevue, is dragging a net behind the boat in an attempt to sieve out some plankton. Jenn, another member of Pittsburgh Voyager's education staff, is trying to convince us that the Ohio River is really pretty healthy.

"Adults are always shocked more than kids to learn that our river water isn't that dirty," she says. "I mean, I wouldn't suggest that you put a cup into it and take a drink, but the water isn't nearly as bad as it used to be.

"There's particles in there, but it's certainly not brown."

Some of the particles, it turns out, are the plankton Jenn was hoping to collect. Below deck, she puts a couple of drops of water under a microscope that is hooked up to a television monitor.

There on the screen, for all of us to see, are the very creepy-looking, clear squirmy things that our mothers always warned us were living in the river. But, according to Jenn, these are good things, the building blocks of river life. These near-invisible critters oxygenate the water and provide food for the fish.

"This is insane," Jenn exclaims as she excitedly watches the wiggling on her slide. "I've never seen this much zooplankton all at once, and I've been doing this for 10 years. It's just too cool."

She points out a brachionus that is attempting to ingest a fragillaria.

"It's neat to watch the food chain working on a microscopic level," she says.

Click to larger view of the sojourn's course.

Now it's time for lunch.

As we do our part in the food chain by consuming some box lunches of turkey, ham and vegetarian sandwiches, we are addressed by Davitt Woodwell, vice president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.

Davitt explains some of the rivers' history and expounds upon what local leaders plan for their future. Rather than diagrams and charts, he uses the shoreline that we pass to make his points. Some of the message, he acknowledges, is bad news as well

"What you see here," he says pointing to the underbelly of the Golden Triangle, "is one of the ugliest pieces of waterfront in America -- the Mon Wharf. We cut ourselves off from the river. I was walking recently and at one point I counted 10 lanes of traffic [between the people and the river]."

He makes me feel guilty for parking there.

The North Shore, he says, is designed better. There is a riverfront park, where people can walk and bike. The roadways are more inland. There is green space and a gentler, more sloping approach to the river.

Pittsburgh Voyager powers up the Mon, turns around and loops back around the Point and onto the Allegheny, past stretches of Pittsburgh that used to be brutally industrial and are now much more accessible and appealing.

Karl Thomas steps up to the microphone for a few closing words, stressing how part of Pittsburgh Voyager's mission is the message of our environment and how important it is to nurture it. We can't abuse it and we shouldn't ignore it, he says.

Part of the immediate future is the promise of a new environmentally friendly boat for Pittsburgh Voyager, a "green vessel" with hybrid-fuel engines that will be a model for watercraft. The teaching program will be enhanced, as will the facilities aboard it. The unnamed 149-passenger boat is being built in Freeport, Fla., and will be transported up to Pittsburgh in the weeks ahead.

Once docked, we leave Pittsburgh Voyager with our complementary Pittsburgh Voyager water bottles. As we walk ashore, I come up on Jerry Kollman, 65, of Philadelphia, whom I met Wednesday night at Camp Guyasuta, before the sojourn began. His wife, Karen, 51, was unable to join him until today's leg on the Ohio.

"I liked it very much," says Jerry, who has taken part in several sojourns but never one as "unique" as this one.

"It's fun to be with a group of people. I like to paddle a lot. These programs are very interesting. All the information that we got today and the programs we had along the river.

"I think [the people who passed on the Ohio trip] just didn't understand that it was going to be as interesting as it was. I think they would have enjoyed it."

For those who stuck it out through all three days, it was quite an experience. As I wave goodbye to Jerry and his wife, I wish them good luck on their next outing, whenever that might be.

"Oh, we'll be paddling on the river tomorrow," he says.

It occurs to me that perhaps the sojourn isn't over. Maybe it never ends.

DAY TWO
FRIDAY, AUG. 11, 2006

Today's river sojourn takes us on the mighty Monongahela, affectionately called "the Mon" by its friends.

And I will be making my first venture in a kayak, affectionately called "a watercraft" by its friends.

It doesn't look all that safe to me, but everyone taking part in the 2006 River of the Year Sojourn on the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers says, "It'll be great. You'll love it."

My mom used to say that about cauliflower.

The number of paddlers today -- 23 -- is down from what we had yesterday, when the sojourn traveled down the Allegheny. Jon Lucadamo of Venture Outdoors, the leader of our expedition, is guessing that those who have dropped out must have fulfilled their paddling quota for the week.

The rest of us press on to the Mon.

Pat Vilsack, 64, of Mt. Lebanon, is a dedicated kayaker. Sitting next to me on the bus from Camp Guyasuta in Sharpsburg, she tells me how she can't wait to ride the Mon. "Very few people travel the Mon," she says. "People have this thought about the Mon being dirty. I think it's fighting this reputation that it doesn't deserve any more."

Jon suggests that paddlers pass on the Mon because of a combination of factors.

"Access is not all that great. And it isn't as scenic," he says. "It's very industrial. There's more barge traffic than the Allegheny. Those reasons, combined? When you're looking for recreational opportunities, there are better ones."

Before we start, we hear short talks by Dennis F. Tubbs, of the state Fish & Boat Commission, and Davitt Woodwell, vice president with the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. Both men compare the Mon to the Allegheny and remark on the Mon's recovery from its industrial history.

"The Mon is a little bit wider, less of a flow than the Allegheny, although the lock and dam system does control that," Mr. Tubbs says.

"There used to be a segment of the river marked off 'No recreation boats.' Now, all the water's open. But you'll see where the industry was, and even a plant that is still in operation."

"When I was a kid, you could only see the river if you were on a bridge," Mr. Woodwell says. "There were mills everywhere, they were not using the rivers. Now, we're going past Homestead and the Duquesne Works and other areas that are coming back."

It's "a true working river," he says, yet it's also become an ideal place for recreational boating. "It's an amazing resurgence."

We put in at the McKeesport boat ramp, near the Lysle Boulevard Bridge. The water we're entering actually is the Youghiogheny River, but we're using it as sort of an entrance ramp to the Mon.

We turn left.

This kayaking thing may not be as difficult as I'd feared. Jon points out to me that, technically, when I'm sitting in a kayak, my center of gravity is lower -- actually below the water line -- than it was yesterday when I was sitting up higher on that uncomfortable little seat in the canoe. So, he reasons, I'm really less likely to turn over today.

The water lapping at the sides of my kayak sprays up onto my arm. You know, these experts can explain these things till it all sounds as safe as sitting on a sofa. But I keep remembering, "When I fall off my sofa, I don't come up splashing and gasping for air, sputtering and thrashing for something to hang on to."

Well, not very often.

It's a magnificent river from the very beginning. The water even appears to be cleaner than the Allegheny did. One of the guides suggests that a recent lack of rain has resulted in less debris being washed off the shorelines. During heavy rains, the rivers can get pretty nasty.

There are long stretches of the Mon that look as green as any riverside you'd like to find. Of course, if you listen, you hear the trains rumbling on the unseen tracks, the trucks braking on the hidden highways, and the pounding and grinding of factories and mills still in operation just out of view. This is still an industrial corridor.

Again, I find myself conflicted. I know that the green trees are beautiful, especially when you consider how nature was beat up along here. But I end up spending more of my time on the river looking at the great brown, rusted remnants of our region's steel-making days. The abandoned structures tower over the riverside like massive monuments, perhaps not as artistic as Greek sculptures or Egyptian pyramids, but no less of a testament to what our forefathers did here.

We paddle on.

An hour or so into the sojourn, we're approaching the McKeesport Bridge. At least, I think it's the McKeesport Bridge. All these city overpasses that I've crossed so many times through the years look so different when you're seeing them from the rivers underneath. They should have signs, I think.

I'm beginning to feel twinges of discomfort. Not exactly pain, but some aching in my arms and back. But there is an upside to it. I haven't thought about tipping over into the water for quite a while.

We paddle past US Steel's Edgar Thompson Plant, a still-operational part of the Mon Valley Works. A few of the workers see us from a distance and call out to us as they wave. It's amazing how sound travels over the water.

"Stroke -- stroke -- stroke."

Yeah, go ahead and tease us. But don't you wish you were out here, too?

We keep looking for barges. Not just because their wakes can play havoc with our tiny crafts, but because they're part of what we're out here to see.

Rivers are the least expensive and most environmentally friendly way to ship tons of cargo. And business is getting more brisk every year.

Unfortunately, some of the facilities on these vital transportation systems -- particularly the locks and dams -- are very old.

A dozen years ago, the Army Corps of Engineers came up with a plan to refurbish and/or replace some of the locks and dams as part of the Lower Monongahela River Project. (Notice how they haven't learned that successful projects need catchy names like "the Smooth Sailing Project.")

Funding delays have put the project behind schedule to the point that a 2020 target date is considered optimistic.

When we reach the Braddock Lock and Dam, Brian Greene of the Army Corps of Engineers, sporting an official uniform as well as a nifty life jacket, steps up to the railing to talk to the sojourners about the importance of the facility.

A lot of good work already has been done, he notes. Five years ago, the old Braddock Dam was replaced with a massive two-piece dam of concrete and steel that, you may remember, was floated up the Ohio River from Leetsdale, past the Point and dropped into place in an operation that had never been done before.

But more work remains to be done at Emsworth and at other locations. And it needs to be done as soon as possible, he says, because a collapse in the waterway would have a devastating affect on the local economy.

Ending his talk and wishing us well, Mr. Greene couldn't be any friendlier to us if we were hauling a load of coal.

"This is your lock, too," he tells the recreational paddlers. "Your tax money built it and maintains it. And you're welcome to use it."

Going through the lock is an interesting experience for a kayaker. You paddle into the massive container, the lock operator closes the door behind you, a worker throws you a rope that you hang on to near the side, and they drop the water level, lowering you and your boat. It takes a few minutes, but it's better than trying to kayak over the dam.

When you come out, you paddle out the other side, where the river level is lower than where you went in. And when you emerge from the Braddock lock, you look up to your left and see the roller coasters of Kennywood.

On the right is the Braddock boat ramp, where we take a lunch break. It's a nice little place with a couple of picnic tables and some shade trees.

Standing on the shore is "Butch," a 50-year-old man who has lived in Homestead most of his life. Leaning against the back of his well-used 1984 Chevy pickup truck, he tells me that he comes down to the Braddock boat ramp all the time to fish.

"Every day, except when it's real hot out here," he says, casting his line into the water again.

Over the years, he says, he's seen a marked increase in recreational boating and fishing on the Mon. I point out that, except for him, we haven't seen that many people.

"Why don't you come down at night?" he asks. "Then you'll see them all."

A few minutes later, we're done with our lunches and getting back into our boats. Across the river, we can hear the screams and squeals of Kennywood's roller coaster riders.

"People have some strange ideas of fun," I think to myself as I fasten my life jacket and climb into my kayak.

Another hour's paddling and we're done. We've traveled 7.5 miles today, and I'm tired. But kayaking wasn't hard at all. It reminds me of how difficult it was to first learn how to ride a bike, wobbling off the sidewalk as I tried to keep my balance.

We pull the kayaks and the two canoes that are with us out of the river and load them onto the trucks at Duck Hollow. Waiting for us there are some representatives of PA CleanWays, an environmental group that is going to talk to us about the importance of keeping our riversides clean.

Danielle Crumrine, 28, of Carrick, tells me that after their talk, she and her group of volunteers will pitch in to pick garbage up from the Mon shoreline. Everything from bait containers and beer cans to tires and refrigerators. A few hours' work, she says, can pull in five tons of trash.

"It's because there's an access road up there without a gate," she says. "People just drive up and dump their garbage. It's awful."

But the volunteers make the most of it. Not only do they find their efforts rewarding in their own way, but they'll have live music, food and drinks for the workers. They actually have a good time making the place better.

Saturday, the sojourners will be on the Ohio River, riding aboard the Pittsburgh Voyager, an educational boat operated out of the Carnegie Science Center. No more kayaks or canoes.

I'm going to miss paddling. Not tomorrow, but eventually, I'm going to miss it.

---

DAY ONE
THURSDAY, AUG. 10, 2006

By Dan Majors
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh, our City of Bridges, is so much more than the skeletal network of steel and concrete that connects our neighborhoods to one another. It's also the rivers -- nature's life blood -- flowing in the veins of our valleys.

Our three rivers, the Allegheny, the Monongahela and the Ohio, may seem to separate the city and its suburbs into distinct sides -- and they do -- but they also unite these places and these people.

That's why all three rivers have been named Pennsylvania's 2006 Rivers of the Year, the first time that the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has bestowed the annual distinction on more than one river since beginning the program in 1991.

Each year, the DCNR also sponsors a River of the Year Sojourn, a paddling trip on which Pennsylvanians are invited to get to know their rivers better. And it isn't all done in the kayaks and canoes. There also are speakers who will discuss the geological history and the economic future of these waterways. They've even thrown in some camping and live music.

This year's sojourn is a three-day event.

Today, Aug. 10, we're doing 12 miles on the Allegheny, from Harmarville to Heinz Field.

On Friday, we'll be on the Mon, paddling 7.5 miles from McKeesport to Duck Hollow, across from the Waterfront.

Saturday's leg will be on the Ohio, but the sojourners will put away their paddles and undertake this stretch aboard the Pittsburgh Voyager, an educational cruise ship.

I'll be going along on behalf of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and writing about each day's outing here at our Web site.

Jon Lucadamo, of Venture Outdoors, is one of the local hosts for the state-sponsored sojourn. The other partners are the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and Pittsburgh Voyager.

Jon greeted me and a dozen or so other sojourners Wednesday evening at Camp Guyasuta, a wonderful Boy Scout campground hidden in an amazing hollow of nature under Route 28 behind the main streets of Sharpsburg.

Most of the Day 1 paddlers will be arriving in the morning, but that's because these river sojourn people are real crack-of-dawn morning people. I'm better off getting there the night before.

Jon describes what lies ahead of us as "a three-day educational sojourn, a sojourn being an educational paddling trip."

I've always found paddling to be educational, so this should be a cinch.

"We're looking at 50 paddlers on the water," he says. "Friday we're going to have 25 to 30 paddlers on the water, and Saturday we'll probably have up to 40 people on the Pittsburgh Voyager."

The intent is to keep the kayaks and canoes reasonably close to each other as we work our way down the river. It's a good idea from a safety standpoint, and it's also an effective way to catch the eye of landlubbers standing along the shore.

"We're trying to raise awareness of recreation on the rivers and the health of the rivers," Jon says. "Pittsburgh's rivers have a very bad reputation from years of industrial abuses, and nowadays it's made a tremendous comeback. It's a great recreational resource."

It's dawn and people are driving to work on the Route 28 bridges that stretch over the camp. At first I think how lucky I am to not be part of the rat race, heading down the highway into office buildings and boring jobs.

Then I see the stack of life jackets. Each paddler will be required to wear one.

Office work may be boring, but most jobs don't require a life jacket to get you through the day.

The instructions I received for the sojourn said to wear waterproof shorts. So I am wearing a blue, flowered bathing suit as I meet my fellow paddlers in the cafeteria for breakfast.

Everyone else is wearing muted earth tones. Khaki or hunter green colored. Very natural.

Apparently, one person remarks, I am expecting a day at the beach.

I never had much of a head for fashion. Fortunately, I am not wearing clown shoes. I've got a snazzy pair of those rubber-soled rafting shoes that are all the rage with serious water folk.

For Day 1, I have deferred from the kayaks and elected to sojourn in a canoe. It just seems to me that if God had intended man to ride in a thing like a kayak ? well, honestly, I don't think God did intend man to ride in kayaks. God, I suspect, preferred canoes and boats and arks.

Sean Brady, 38, of Observatory Hill, is an experienced paddler and a development director with Venture Outdoors. He has agreed to ride in a canoe with me. After I have my life jacket strapped securely around my girth, he takes me aside for a safety talk.

"One of the challenges of a canoe is that there are two people," he explains. "So you have to coordinate. You have to communicate.

"If one person leans over to one side, it's OK. But if both people lean over to the same side at the same time, then you're in trouble. You're going swimming."

I'm thinking 'No leaning.'

I designate Sean the captain and I'll be the crew. I'll be in front, he'll be in back. I'll paddle, he'll steer.

Oh, by the way, Sean informs me, he has brought a fishing pole. He intends to trail his lure as we paddle down the river and is optimistic about catching a couple of fish.

I eyeball our canoe -- a skinny little cigar-looking thing that could probably be swamped by an angry catfish if it puts up a fight.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat," I'm thinking.

At the boat ramp in Harmarville, the 30 or so paddlers take a moment to get acquainted with each other. The participants give their names, tell how much paddling experience they have, and describe their most memorable time on the water.

"My name is Dan Majors and this is my first sojourn. But I was in a raft on the Allegheny River during the Home Run Derby before last month's All-Star Game at PNC Park."

Everyone, I know, is looking at my bathing suit.

After the introductions, we all gather beneath a large, shady maple tree to hear John Harper, 59, a geologist for the DCNR, talk about the history of the rivers in Western Pennsylvania. A Pittsburgh native, he has lived his entire life within a mile of these rivers.

John tells us about the layers of the earth below us and how the glaciers carved up our part of the continent, changing the direction of the rivers and streams.

"The glaciers did not come this far south. They stopped up around Butler, went down as far as Beaver," he says. "They didn't make it this far, but they had a lot of influence on the rivers we see today."

He also debunked the "myth" of Pittsburgh's fourth river, "the underground river supposedly feeding the fountain at Point State Park." I didn't quite grasp the explanation -- it involved aquifers and sediment and scientific things like that -- but I'm going to take his word for it.

At 9:40 a.m., we get into the water. Putting in next to our canoe is David Smith, 17, and his father, John, 51, of Harrisburg. John works for the DCNR -- as his T-shirt plainly proclaims -- and has made these sojourns an annual family outing. Usually, his wife and daughter come along, but not this year.

They're riding a canoe today and plan to kayak tomorrow.

"Kayaking is easier," he says. "We go out maybe five or six times a year."

Robin Kermes, 50, of Camp Hill, just outside Harrisburg, says she usually kayaks nice, gentle streams, in which she gets out at the same place where she got in.

"This is the first time I will have gone 12 miles down a river," she says. "As long as people assure me there's no white water, I'm not nervous. But I like flat water."

The Allegheny, we have been assured, is flat.

The ride on the river is breathtaking in so many ways. Sure, it's beautiful, but it's also a lot of work paddling a canoe for 12 miles.

The banks of the Allegheny are a blend of handiwork by nature and man. Lush green trees line the waterway, as do rusted brown steel constructions. There are colorful flashes of weeds called purple loosestrife, an invasive aquatic species that is not native to our area and growing rampant in the shallow water. There are old tires.

"There's the mouth of Plum Creek," Sean says as he steers us past Oakmont and toward Verona. "That's where the state record flathead catfish was caught about 15 years ago. It weighed 40 pounds. The size of a small child."

We paddle past an old, abandoned barge between Sycamore Island and Nine Mile Island. At the mouth of Sandy Creek, Sean catches his first fish, a striped bass. Later, on the other side of Lock & Dam #2, he'll reel in a smallmouth bass.

Both fish are released. Later, while casting, Sean accidentally hooks his lure into my life jacket. Fortunately, I, too, am quickly released.

Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Michael DiBerardinis, along with Cindy Dunn, paddle down the Allegheny River during the first day of the River of the Year Sojourn. Click photo for larger image.

We break for lunch at the riverside facility in Millvale, where DCNR Secretary Michael DiBerardinis and his Harrisburg entourage have come to present one of those oversized checks. It's only oversized in terms of actual square footage.

As far as the money it's providing for recreation and conservation projects in Allegheny County -- a $2.8 million grant for 19 projects -- it's fairly nice-sized. It will help pay for "green space" improvements in parks, facilities, trails and landscaping in communities including Collier, Liberty, McKeesport, Millvale, Moon, Mt. Lebanon, Sewickley and Upper St. Clair.

"We have to help communities grow, and we have to connect natural resource conservation. So it's just not dirty it up and block it up; it's clean it up and open it up," says Mr. DiBerardinis, who later joins the sojourners for the last leg of today's trek down the Allegheny. I notice that he, too, is in a canoe.

Finally, we are past Washington's Landing and approaching the city skyline. The water is much choppier here because the banks are more constructed, robbing the river of its chance to lap to stillness. Water hits the concrete walls and bounces back into itself with the same force that it tried to leave.

Some of our sojourners want to paddle over to the Point for a photo op. I inform Sean that the Post-Gazette has provided a perfectly capable photographer to take our picture over near the put-out ramp alongside Heinz Field and I'd just as soon make our way over there.

Besides, those River Rescue boats are zipping back and forth, their wakes adding to the choppy surface.

It's time to go home. Tomorrow, we'll start again.