Barcroft-Dam-Fairfax-County-Virginia-22-Oct-2017

Holmes Run is a stream in the Cameron Run Watershed in

Northern Virginia Northern Virginia, locally referred to as NOVA or NoVA, comprises several County (United States), counties and independent city (United States), independent cities in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. ...

. It runs through

Fairfax County Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. With a population of 1,150,309 as of the 2020 census, it is the most populous county in Virginia, the most populous jurisdiction in the Washington ...

and the

City of Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the second largest city in Egypt and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile River delta. Founded in 331 BC by Alexander the Great, Alexandria grew rapidly and became a major cen ...

. It is a first-order

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

of the

Potomac River The Potomac River () is in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography D ...

. Its headwater is near the junction of

I-495 Interstate 495 (I-495) is the designation for the following five Interstate Highways in the United States, all of which are related to I-95: * The Capital Beltway, a beltway around Washington, D.C., running through Virginia, Maryland, and a sliver ...

and

I-66 Interstate 66 (I-66) is a 76.32 mile east–west Interstate Highway in the East Coast of the United States, eastern United States. The highway runs from an interchange with Interstate 81 in Virginia, I-81 near Middletown, Virginia, on its w ...

. It crosses the region in a southeasterly direction for ten and a half miles until it merges with Backlick Run to form

Cameron Run Cameron Run is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed August 15, 2011 tributary stream of the Potomac River, located in the U.S. state of Virginia. A third-order stream, ...

. Cameron Run becomes

Hunting Creek Hunting Creek is a cove and tributary stream of the Potomac River between the City of Alexandria and Fairfax County in Virginia. It is formed by Cameron Run flowing from the west. The community of Huntington takes its name from the creek. Jon ...

and empties into the

just south of the

Woodrow Wilson Bridge The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, also known as the Woodrow Wilson Bridge or the Wilson Bridge, is a bascule bridge that spans the Potomac River between Alexandria, Virginia and Oxon Hill, Maryland in Prince George's County, Maryland. The ...

. In 1913–1915 the Alexandria Water Company built a dam on Holmes Run in order to create Lake Barcroft as a

potable water Drinking water or potable water is water that is safe for ingestion, either when drunk directly in liquid form or consumed indirectly through food preparation. It is often (but not always) supplied through taps, in which case it is also calle ...

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

for Alexandria. In the early post-war era, Alexandria began to exceed the capacity of Lake Barcroft and in 1949 discontinued its use in favor of

Occoquan Reservoir Occoquan Reservoir is a reservoir in northeast Virginia, southwest of Washington, D.C., straddling part of the boundary between Fairfax and Prince William Counties, west of Alexandria. It is formed by the Occoquan Dam on the Occoquan River . M ...

Physical description

As an urban river, Holmes Run has in places been heavily

channelized Channelized in a telecommunications environment means that the line that communications have been transmitted over contains more than one message thread, separated in some fashion. Typical channelization methods include packetizing, frequency- ...

, but also significant portions have been developed as urban greenspace as Holmes Run Trail. Above Lake Barcroft its route makes up the border of West Falls Church and Annandale.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{authority control Rivers of Fairfax County, Virginia Rivers of Alexandria, Virginia Rivers of Virginia Tributaries of the Potomac River

Physical description

See also

References

Bibliography