Cedar Creek (Indiana)

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Cedar Creek near the confluence with the St. Joseph River

Cedar Creek: Scenic River Segment

Called Mes-kwah-wa-se-pe or "old redwood creek" by Native Americans, Cedar Creek is the largest tributary of the St. Joseph River, draining 174,780 acres (707 km²) in northeastern Indiana. It rises in northwestern DeKalb County and joins the St. Joseph just below the Cedarville Dam in Allen County.

[edit] Origins and History

Upper Cedar Creek originated as an ice-marginal channel at the western edge of the Erie Lobe of the Wisconsin Glacier and formed a single stream with the southwest-flowing Eel River which connected to the Wabash River. Lower Cedar Creek was a tributary of the ancestral Eel, carrying glacial meltwater under the ice through a tunnel valley known today as Cedar Creek Canyon. Blockage of the Eel's channel by outwash from the canyon and a decline in the volume of meltwater caused lower Cedar Creek to reverse its flow. In so doing, it captured the flow of the upper Eel, a classic example of stream piracy that shifted Cedar Creek's drainage (about 175,000 acres) from the Eel-Wabash system to that of the St. Joseph-Maumee.

Once a meandering stream, upper Cedar Creek was channelized (straightened and deepened) in the early 20th Century for agricultural and urban drainage, which has increased the watershed's vulnerability to erosion and contaminated runoff. Once home to 27 species of freshwater mussel, Cedar Creek has experienced a drastic decline in mussel population since the 1980s.

Lower Cedar Creek, from river mile 13.7 to its confluence with the St. Joseph is officially designated as an "Outstanding State Resource Water" and is one of four streams in Indiana's Natural, Scenic and Recreational Rivers system.

[edit] References

Water Resource Availability in the Maumee River Basin, Indiana, Water Resource Assessment 96-5, Indianapolis:Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water, 1996, pp. 46-47. May be found in pdf format at [1]
Sunderman, Jack A., "The Three Faces of Cedar Creek," ACRES Quarterly, v. 39, no. 4 (Fall 2000), pp. 6-7. May be found at [2]