LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 05 - A Conspiracy Unmasked

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Originally posted by Davem
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"there is something in Unfinished Tales (The Hunt for the Ring) which is a bit puzzling:Quote:
My father nowhere explained the Ringwraiths’ fear of water....Thus of the rider (who was in fact Khamul of Dol Guldur*) seen on the far side of Bucklebury Ferry just after the hobbits had crossed it is said that ‘ he was well aware that the Ring had crossed the river; but the river was a barrier to his sense of movement’, & that the Nazgul would not touch the ‘elvish’ waters of Baranduin"
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If I could make a brief comment here, my first in the chapters discussion,
I've always been curious about CT's observation above, it seems to me an obvious possible reason for the Ringwraith's fear of water, and Sauron's various lads not using the sea (save for the allied Corsairs of Umbar, is implied in the Silmarillion, the power of Ulmo not just in the seas but in rivers and streams, especially versus the far weaker Sauron as opposed to Morgoth.
From Unfinished Tales
"The waters that run westward whither, and their springs are poisoned, and my power withdraws from the land."

In the Third Age, why wouldn't his power be dominant in major rivers like the Anduin and the Brandywine?