Saving White Clay Creek: The Charge of the Dorothy Miller Brigade pays tribute to Dorothy Miller, a citizen of Newark who died at age 84 on February 22, 2016. Dorothy Miller was a birder and nature lover turned activist who is widely regarded as the coalition builder who successfully fought a proposed damming of White Clay Creek in the 1960s. Saving White Clay Creek was the first step in allying citizens, conservation-minded organizations, the DuPont Company, and the state governments of Delaware and Pennsylvania to acquire and preserve open space to protect the entire White Clay Creek Watershed. By an act of Congress, the White Clay Creek was declared a National Wild and Scenic River in 2000. One of only 208 Wild and Scenic Rivers in the United States, White Clay Creek is unique for its designation of the entire watershed, not just a river section, in the National Wild and Scenic River System. This watershed spans 107 square miles across two states and the combined recreational and scenic creek and tributaries span 199 miles.
Items on display in Library exhibit:
1. Delaware Nature Education Center, Inc., Observations on the ecology of the White Clay Creek Valley with particular reference to the effect of a proposed dam, prepared for the New Castle County Government, 1970.
2. Coalition for Natural Stream Valleys, “Your presence is needed at a public hearing … “ (memorandum), 1974 June 25
3. Citizens for White Clay Creek, End of 1984 report (memorandum), 1984 December
4. National Park Service, White Clay Creek National Wild and Scenic River Watershed Management Committee, 2006 Update (report), 2006
All items are from the Dorothy P. Miller papers, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, unless otherwise noted.
Credits
Curated by L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin. Exhibition site by Dustin Frohlich.
