New York

New York is richly endowed with freshwater lakes, ponds, and reservoirs, as well as portions of two of the five Great Lakes, but the thousands of miles of rivers and streams are the equally impressive. These rivers supply drinking water, provide flood control to protect life and property, and support recreation, tourism, agriculture, fishing, power generation, and manufacturing, while still providing habitat for aquatic plant and animal life.

New York’s rivers figure prominently in the background of this country. From Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River to Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, New York rivers have shaped our history and our culture. Many of our literary nobility have written about, or been influenced by the Hudson River, including Edgar Allan Poe, Edith Wharton, William Cullen Bryant, Walt Whitman, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, as well as dozens of other, lesser-known authors. In fact, so great is the literary history of the Hudson River that entire books have been written about its influence.

New York has approximately 51,790 miles of river, of which 73.4 miles are designated as wild & scenic—a bit more than 1/10th of 1% of the state's river miles.