"Even before streams of the Conemaugh and Kiskiminetas River basins were devastated by acid mine drainage pollution, and denigrated to the status of flood hazards and industrial sewers, these waters suffered serious image problems on purely semantic terms. The names Kiskiminetas and Conemaugh, both of Native American origin, have at times been a handicap to even consideration of public works appropriations. The following is from the debate on the 1878 Public Works Bill by the 45th Congress.

"From across the aisle, another congressman shouted: 'May I ask the gentleman from Louisiana to name the unmentionable river?'

'I will spell it' said Ellis, 'K-i-s-k-i-m-i-n-e-t-a-s'.

Peals of laughter interrupted the debate. After the uproar had subsided. Harry White of Indiana County, PA, who sponsored the surveys of the Allegheny and its unmentionable tributaries, rose to respond. 'The gentleman says he cannot pronounce these names. It is the Kis-ki-min-tas River he stumbles at'.

Laughter again shook the hall, but General White continued: 'The honorable gentleman's education has been sadly neglected if he cannot pronounce that name. It is a musical Indian name, has a local association, and signifies, if I rightly remember, 'sprightly stream'. It is one of the tributaries of the Allegheny River. Twenty seven miles above Pittsburgh, the Kiskiminetas, so difficult for the gentleman from Louisiana to pronounce, empties into the Allegheny, being one of its main tributaries. The Kiskiminetas is formed by the junction of the Conemaugh and Loyalhanna at Saltsburg, a town of considerable size some 23 miles above its mouth, and the Conemaugh, being called for a tribe in Indians of that name, has its sources in the Allegheny Mountains'.

Representative Hendrick Wright of Wilkes-Barre asked, 'Where is the stream that is called Conemaugh, Kiskiminetas, or some such name?'

'Why, the gentleman from Pennsylvania', answered General White, 'aspires to be the chief executive of that State, and if he does not know the location of the streams he is ignorant of the geography of his State and ought not to seek such a high position'.

'I do not fish in such shallow waters for the nomination of governor', Wright retorted, and laughter made the chandeliers dance.

'Whither are we drifting?' asked General White. 'The gentleman is an old Democratic politician in Pennsylvania. He was famous when I was a child, but does not know enough of geography to be our governor, I fear'. He then recited the history of navigation on the Kiskiminetas and of the Pennsylvania Canal for the edification of his colleague and the House.

Wright ignored General White's lecture and asked, 'Are they navigable streams?'

'They can be a portion of the year', White replied, 'and it is practicable, in my opinion, that they can be made navigable the greater portion, if not the whole of the year. I want the survey to show this to the country for my part of the State. Come out and see our coal-fields, our coke-ovens, our fire-brick works, our lumber-yards, our mills, our agricultural wealth, our furnaces and rolling mills run by natural gas welling up from the bowels of the earth; our oil wells, making wealth to the State and the country. Come, travel a little and learn what your State needs'.

Newspapers round the nation played the debate for all it was worth, using the survey of the Kiskiminetas as a prime example of grease oozing from the pork barrel. The Philadelphia Ledger suggested that Hendrick Wright look out the car window next time he crossed Pennsylvania by rail to see the Kiskiminetas in all its glory. The Pittsburgh Gazette commented: 'The idea of improving the roaring Kiskiminetas and babbling Conemaugh does not seem to be received by the press of the country with the seriousness that is absolutely required. At all events, if they are not navigable, that is exactly what [the survey] is intended to make them'."

excerpt from Dr. Leland R. Johnson's "Headwater District of the Pittsburgh Corps of Engineers", pp. 118-131.