Fall River (Shasta County, California)
| Fall River | |
| stream | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| State | California |
| Region | Shasta County, California |
| Tributaries | |
| - left | Spring Creek, Tule River |
| - right | Bear Creek |
| City | Fall River Mills, California |
| Source | Thousand Springs, a spring in Shasta County |
| - elevation | 3,323 ft (1,013 m) [1] |
| - coordinates | 41°06′52″N 121°33′12″W / 41.11444°N 121.55333°W |
| Mouth | |
| - location | Fall River Mills, California |
| - elevation | 3,291 ft (1,003 m) [1] |
| - coordinates | 41°00′06″N 121°26′18″W / 41.00167°N 121.43833°WCoordinates: 41°00′06″N 121°26′18″W / 41.00167°N 121.43833°W [1] |
The Fall River is a 21.3-mile-long (34.3 km) river[2][3] tributary to the Pit River in north-eastern Shasta County in northern California. It is a designated Heritage and Wild Trout stream.
History
The river was named Fall River by John Frémont in 1848 because of its historic cascades and falls at the terminus of the river.[4]
Ecology and conservation
The Fall River Conservancy and the Fall River Resource Conservation District both work to restore the river. The former has worked with the University of California Davis to study the trout and identified two distinct sub-populations, one adapted to the colder winter flows of Bear Creek and one adapted to the more constant temperature spring-fed waters of Spring Creek and the Fall River mainstem.[5] The large volume of spring water inflow maintains Fall River water temperature at near optimum ranges for trout production, even during mid-summer.[3]
The upper river has historically been characterized by abundant aquatic macrophytes, including extensive meadows of horned pondweed (Zannichellia palustris), however these have dramatically declined due to excessive sediment deposition due to fires in the watershed and channelization of a tributary stream.[6]
Watershed and course
The Fall River watershed drains a 612 square miles (1,590 km2) originates from Thousand Springs, and is largely spring-fed, with Bear Creek providing the only significant precipitation-related surface flow to the river. Bear Creek rises at a source elevation over 4,803 feet (1,464 m) and flows east to join Fall River at Thousand Springs at elevation 3,323 feet (1,013 m).[7][8] Its other two main tributaries, Spring Creek and the Tule River, are also spring-fed, with the latter originating in the Ahjumawi Lava Springs system. Fall River is a moderate sized, slow moving, meandering meadow stream with a mean gradient of less than 1 ft./mile. Spring Creek joins Fall River 5.2 miles below Thousand Springs, and seven miles below Spring Creek, Fall River is joined by Tule River. Since 1922 the river has been dammed before its confluence with the Pit River and diverted through a tunnel under Saddle Mountain to the Pit No. 1 Intake powerhouse, one of many hydroelectric dams on the Pit River.[3]
| description | coordinates |
|---|---|
| confluence, Bear Creek | 41.114441,-121.556253 |
| road, Metzger | 41.097594,-121.548185 |
| road, Island | 41.08857,-121.493297 |
| confluence, from Horr Pond | 41.072363,-121.463814 |
| road, MacArthur | 41.062398,-121.481667 |
| dam, Fall River Lake | 41.008338,-121.44742 |
| road, CA 299 | 41.003091,-121.441412 |
| mouth, @ Pit River | 41.0015521 -121.4383139 |
See also
References
- 1 2 3 U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Thousand Springs
- ↑ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed March 10, 2011
- 1 2 3 Michael Rode and W. Donald Weidlein, revised and updated by Samuel L. Plemons and Michael Dege. Fall River Wild Trout Management Plan 2013-2018 (Report). California Department of Fish and Game. Retrieved 2015-07-25.
- ↑ Erwin Gustav Gudde (1969). 1000 California Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning. University of California Press. p. 28. ISBN 9780520014329. Retrieved 2015-07-25.
- ↑ Allison Sherlock (Spring 2015). "Restoring California's Largest Spring-Fed River". CalTrout: 32–33. Retrieved 2015-07-26.
- ↑ David F. Spencer, Gregory G. Ksander (June 2002). "Sedimentation disrupts natural regeneration of Zannichellia palustris in Fall River, California". Aquatic Botany. 73 (2): 137–147. doi:10.1016/s0304-3770(02)00016-5. Retrieved 2015-07-26.
- ↑ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed July 26, 2015
- ↑ "Bear Creek". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.