Named after the Susquehannock Indians who once roamed this area, the Susquehanna is the largest non-navigable river in the United States and the largest river lying entirely within the U.S. that drains into the Atlantic Ocean. It is the 16th largest river in the United States.
The Susquehanna’s main stem, flows 444 miles from its headwaters at Otsego Lake near Cooperstown, New York, to Havre de Grace, Maryland, where the river meets the Chesapeake Bay. The Susquehanna is the largest tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, providing 90 percent of the fresh water flows to the upper half of the bay and 50 percent overall.
The Susquehanna River Basin drains 27,500 square miles, covering half the land area of Pennsylvania and portions of New York and Maryland. Sixty percent of that area is forest land.
A population of 4.1 million live in the basin. The basin loses about 446 million gallons of water per day during peak consumptive water uses. That number is projected to increase to over 645 million gallons per day by the year 2010.