Arthur Kill is an abandoned river channel carved by an ancestral phase of the Hudson River resulting from the blockage of the main channel of the Hudson at the Narrows by moraine or an ice dam.
The size of Arthur Kill channel is large, suggesting that it was, for a time, the primary drainage from the region.
However, it could not have been a primary drainage for long because the river did not have enough time to carve a broad flood plain.

Because of the complex nature of the tides in New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River, the hydrology of Arthur Kill is still an open subject.
In particular, the net flow of the channel is not well established.
It was heavily polluted in the 1960s and 1970s, with few fish species able to live in it.
Since the 1990s, crabs, baitfish, striped bass and bluefish have returned to this water.
Arthur Kill is an abandoned river channel carved by an ancestral phase of the Hudson River resulting from the blockage of the main channel of the Hudson at the Narrows by moraine or an ice dam. The size of Arthur Kill channel is large, suggesting that it was, for a time, the primary drainage from the region. However, it could not have been a primary drainage for long because the river did not have enough time to carve a broad flood plain.
Because of the complex nature of the tides in New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River, the hydrology of Arthur Kill is still an open subject. In particular, the net flow of the channel is not well established. It was heavily polluted in the 1960s and 1970s, with few fish species able to live in it. Since the 1990s, crabs, baitfish, striped bass and bluefish have returned to this water.
Arthur Kill