Shellpot Creek

Shellpot Creek is a tributary of the Delaware River in northeast New Castle County, Delaware.[1] The stream rises between Grubb Road and Shipley Road, south of Naaman's Road at 39°49′19″N 75°31′55″W / 39.82194°N 75.53194°W / 39.82194; -75.53194 in Brandywine Hundred and flows southeast for about six miles before discharging into the Delaware River at 39°44′05″N 75°30′16″W / 39.73472°N 75.50444°W / 39.73472; -75.50444 near Edgemoor.[2][3] Prior to 1938, the stream drained into the Brandywine Creek, but was subsequently redirected to the Delaware River.[4]

The watershed has a drainage area of nearly 15 square miles, and is the most suburbanized drainage area in the Piedmont Basin.[3] New Castle County, the Calpine Edge Moor Power Plant, the former Chemours Edge Moor plant, Amtrak, and the City of Wilmington all discharge storm water into Shellpot Creek.[5] During Tropical Storm Allison (1989), the creek flooded to record levels, with the flow rising from 1,300 gallons per minute to 3.6 millions of gallons per minute (or more than 8,000 cubic feet per second).[4][6]

The name is likely derived from the Swedish Sköllpadde Fallet (meaning "Turtle Falls"),[7] and has been historically known as "Schillpades", "Skilpot", and "Shilpot".

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Shellpot Creek Watershed" (PDF). DNREC.
  2. ↑ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Shellpot Creek
  3. 1 2 "Shellpot Creek - Delaware Watersheds".
  4. 1 2 Bagwell, Anne Marina (2007). A Synoptically Guided Approach to Determining Suburbanization's Impacts on the Hydrology of the Red and White Clay Creeks, Pennsylvania and Delaware. University of Delaware, Department of Geography. p. 71. ISBN 0549387145.
  5. ↑ "Decision Rationale Total Maximum Daily Loads for Shellpot Creek, New Castle County, Delaware" (PDF). EPA.
  6. ↑ "USGS 01477800 SHELLPOT CREEK AT WILMINGTON, DE".
  7. ↑ Federal Writers' Project (1938). Delaware: A Guide to the First State. US History Publishers. p. 326.


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