Glimpse of headwaters, Deposit, NY

Depo­sit, New York is small, in fact really small, and I intend to get to know it a little bet­ter. My first sight of Depo­sit, during a quick car ride through its few inter­sec­tions, was at 7am on a mid– Novem­ber arri­val after spen­ding the pre­vious night in Bingham­ton shac­ked up in Motel Dec­re­pit (that’s not really its name, but it’s well deser­ving).  So I was only somewhat res­ted when arri­ving in Deposit.

That mor­ning  I also would meet Jim Ehmke, a news repor­ter at chan­nel 34 (a tele­vi­sion sta­tion in Bingham­ton), at the Can­nons­vi­lle Reser­voir for an inter­view about the river pro­ject. So I hea­ded to the reser­voir to scout it. It's loca­ted in a serene hilly area and is one of seve­ral sour­ces of drin­king water for New York City. Its discharge, really cold water into the con­ti­nuing West Branch of the Dela­ware, helps pro­mote it as being one of the finest fly-fishing areas in the country.

Can­nons­vi­lle takes its name from a town now at the bot­tom of the reser­voir. In the late 60’s the town was bull­do­zed, a dam built and the reser­voir crea­ted. I guess that’s con­si­de­red “pro­gress” in the eyes of some. But it does add to the allure of the area. Kno­wing a town is sub­mer­ged con­ju­res up lots of haun­ted ideas that go well with the spa­rely popu­la­ted region. I also found an entire sec­tion of a web­site that’s dedi­ca­ted to towns that are con­si­de­red sac­ri­fi­ces to NYC.

So, the Novem­ber chill and slee­pi­ness still pla­gued me even after a brief run through a field where I caught some steam rising off the river before the mor­ning light ended. I found a few plea­sing ima­ges and moved on even­tually mee­ting up with Jim for the inter­view. Early after­noon I spent pho­to­graphing the reser­voir at the Speed­well access area. It was a good start in get­ting to know the head­wa­ters and Upper Delaware.