Water trail on Cooper River to advance environmental education in Camden

This article originally appeared in New Jersey Spotlight News.

Can one paddle a kayak on Camden County’s Cooper River, fish from its banks, and watch its wildlife even though it flows through some of New Jersey’s most heavily urbanized land?

The answers are a resounding yes, partly thanks to a new water trail that will officially open on Saturday.

The Cooper River Water Trail, eight years in the planning and building, is designed to make the river more accessible to the public, to show people that the river is not the trash-choked wilderness that they may have thought, and to highlight a natural gem in a dense urban landscape.

At the event in Camden’s Cramer Hill Waterfront Park, designers, builders, sponsors and the public will celebrate the completion of the 15.5-mile trail, which runs from near the river’s confluence with the Delaware River to Crows Woods near Haddonfield.

Boaters who want to complete the whole trail will have to carry their kayaks or canoes at three portages where there are dams on the river.

Signs on land and water

In-water signs guide paddlers, while other signs on about 10 bridges alert drivers and pedestrians to the fact that they are crossing a river that many people don’t even know is there. Yet more signs in the water near bridges will show trail users where they are, and act as aids to navigation.

To improve public access, a new dock has been built at Cramer Hill Waterfront Park, and two more docks are planned at other points along the trail. The project also plans to build launch “kiosks” at seven points on the trail.

Upstream Alliance President Don Baugh said public demand for a water trail was shown at the Waterfront Park opening in 2021 when some attendees paddled in kayaks for the first time, and returned saying they wanted more.

The event, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., will include kayaking, fishing, kite-flying and face painting, as well as the official opening of the trail. Sponsors include the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Camden County and the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. Design and construction of the trail cost almost $1.2 million in two grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The project is led by Upstream Alliance, a nonprofit that provides environmental education for young people in underserved areas such as Camden, and which for about the last 10 years has taken groups of high school students and adults on kayak trips to hidden natural sites that they would not otherwise have visited.

Public appetite for greater access

“We had free kayaking, and 100 people went out on this pond. Almost all of them had never been on the water in any capacity. They left the dock in trepidation, and all came back saying, ‘When can we do this again?’” Baugh said.

People feared the water because of high pollution, but that’s in the past, Baugh said, and the water trail will build on a new public demand for water-based recreation in a natural setting.

“Because there has been a legacy of pollution, there has been a mindset that these waters are not there for them and not safe for them,” he said. But the water quality has improved “dramatically” in the last 20 years, and the water trail now improves access to the river, Baugh said.

In 2022, the nonprofit led a five-day expedition for four Camden teenagers, plus naturalists and photographers, to the source of the Cooper River near Lindenwold, in a trip designed to raise public awareness about a recreational asset in a dense urban area, and to build support for natural stewardship.

A new world for many Camden residents

The opening of the water trail is the culmination of Upstream Alliance’s efforts to advance its environmental-education mission in one of New Jersey’s poorest cities, an effort that is supported by local leaders including Camden’s mayor, Victor Carstarphen.

“The Cooper River is a hidden gem and I am confident the Cooper River Water Trail will be an incredible way to feature our beautiful waterways,” Carstarphen said in a statement. “It’s remarkable how much our waters are full of life, they are simply great places to relax and recreate. There is so much value in being in nature and on the water.”

Jaymarie Torres, a Pennsauken police officer and longtime Camden resident, said she plans to volunteer for the water trail opening because she recognizes the value of nature to people who have been deprived of it.

She recalled a kayak expedition with Upstream Alliance to Petty’s Island, a part of the water trail in the Delaware River where participants watched a bald eagle that has become resident there. “Everyone was in awe, and those were adults,” she said. “Imagine kids. They get the opportunity to paddle right out into the middle of the river and just look at all their surroundings.”

Such events have been outside the experience of most Camden kids but the water trail will create new opportunities to immerse themselves in nature, and discover a world that few knew existed, Torres said.

“Who goes kayaking?” she said. “You’re introducing a new sport. It’s relaxing. If you suffer from anxiety and depression, you just paddle into the middle of the river and just look at everything.”