{"id":86613,"date":"2026-01-14T15:43:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/86613\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T15:43:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:43:27","slug":"pa-opens-voting-for-2026-river-of-the-year-with-3-finalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/86613\/","title":{"rendered":"PA Opens Voting for 2026 River of the Year With 3 Finalists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You&#8217;re invited to cast your vote for Pennsylvania&#8217;s River of the Year for 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Three waterways \u2014 the lower portion of the Schuylkill River near <a href=\"https:\/\/philadelphianewsroom.com\/tag\/philadelphia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Philadelphia<\/a>, the Chillisquaque Creek in central Pennsylvania, and the Conestoga River in Lancaster County \u2014 have all been named finalists.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The winning river&#8217;s nominating group will receive a $15,000 grant from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) to fund year\u2011long celebrations.<\/p>\n<p>Organized by the POWR, the program is supported by DCNR funding to celebrate waterways and raise conservation awareness.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/keystonenewsroom.com\/2026\/01\/12\/pa-vote-2026-river-of-the-year\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">According to The Keystone<\/a>, in 2025, the Delaware River received the award.\u00a0Organized by the POWR, the award is supported by funding from the DCNR to celebrate waterways and raise conservation awareness.<\/p>\n<p>Learn About the RiversThe <a href=\"https:\/\/conestogariverclub.org\/water-trail\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Conestoga River<\/a> flows about 60 miles from Berks County through Lancaster County to Safe Harbor on the Susquehanna River. <a href=\"https:\/\/lancastercleanwaterpartners.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">Lancaster Clean Water Partners<\/a> nominated this river for consideration.<a href=\"https:\/\/montourrec.com\/chillisquaque-creek\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Chillisquaque Creek<\/a> is a 20\u2011mile tributary with a 112\u2011square\u2011mile watershed spanning Montour, Northumberland, Columbia, and Lycoming counties. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middlesusquehannariverkeeper.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association<\/a> nominated this river for voting.The lower portion of the Schuylkill River in the greater Philadelphia region runs for 36 miles, starting in Phoenixville in Chester County and ending at the river&#8217;s mouth near the Schuylkill Navy Yard in Philadelphia. Significant efforts by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.landhealthinstitute.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">LandHealth Institute<\/a> have focused on cleaning up the river.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You&#8217;re invited to cast your vote for Pennsylvania&#8217;s River of the Year for 2026. Three waterways \u2014 the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,28,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-86613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}