Stony Brook (Fishing Creek Tributary)
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Stony Brook is a tributary of Fishing Creek in
Columbia County, Pennsylvania Columbia County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 64,727. Its county seat is Bloomsburg. The county was created on March 22, 1813, from part of Northumberland County. It ...
. It is long and flows through North Centre Township and Orange Township. The stream's watershed has an area of 3.72 square miles. It flows through a steep ravine which is inhabited by numerous plant species for much of its length. The fossil-rich Stony Brook Beds also have an outcropping near the stream. In the 1870s, it was considered for use as a water supply by the Bloomsburg Water Company.


Course

Stony Brook starts in northwestern North Centre Township, on the southern edge of Knob Mountain. It begins flowing southwest and almost immediately crosses Pennsylvania Route 93. Shortly afterwards, it leaves North Centre Township, after which it enters Orange Township and continues southwest, where it enters a valley. The valley gets steeper as the stream turns south and then west, flowing north of Summer Hill. The stream crosses
Pennsylvania Route 487 Pennsylvania Route 487 (PA 487) is a , north–south state highway running from Pennsylvania Route 61, PA 61 in Shamokin Township, Pennsylvania, Shamokin Township, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, Northumberland County, to Pennsylvania R ...
and shortly reaches its confluence with Fishing Creek. Stony Brook joins Fishing Creek upstream of its mouth and upstream of Lightstreet.


Geography, geology, and hydrology

Stony Brook flows through a steep and narrow valley for part of its length. The elevation of the stream is above sea level. The
bed A bed is a piece of furniture that is used as a place to sleep, rest, and relax. Most modern beds consist of a soft, cushioned mattress on a bed frame. The mattress rests either on a solid base, often wood slats, or a sprung base. Many beds ...
of Stony Brook consists of
cobbles Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings. Setts, also called ''Belgian blocks'', are often referred to as "cobbles", although a sett is distinct from a ...
. An outcropping of the
rock formation A rock formation is an isolated, scenic, or spectacular surface rock (geology), rock outcrop. Rock formations are usually the result of weathering and erosion sculpting the existing rock. The term ''rock Geological formation, formation ...
known as the Stony Brook Beds is visible on the side of a road at the mouth of Stony Brook. This rock formation consists of
shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...
and has a high concentration of
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
s, including two varieties of spirifier. The habitat around Stony Brook allows for a relatively high
water quality Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water based on the standards of its usage. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance, generally achieved through tr ...
; the stream's water is quite clear, but there is a risk the water quality could be impacted by runoff from nearby residential and agricultural lands.


Watershed and tributaries

The Columbia County Natural Heritage Inventory from 2004 designated the watershed of Stony Brook as a "locally significant site". It has an area of 3.72 square miles, and no tributaries. The stream is in the Bloomsburg
USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...
Topographical Quadrant. The valley of Stony Brook is forested and largely undeveloped. Although there is agricultural land upstream of the valley and on both sides of it and a housing development located on one side of the valley, there is no road going through the valley, and the Columbia County Natural Heritage Inventory strongly discourages the construction of one, stating that it would "be the most destructive action against this Exceptional Value Waters stream.".


History

In the 1870s, the Bloomsburg Water Company attempted unsuccessfully to use Stony Brook as a water supply. In 1938, a concrete
tee beam A T-beam (or tee beam), used in construction, is a load-bearing structure of reinforced concrete, wood or metal, with a capital 'T'-shaped cross section. The top of the T-shaped cross section serves as a flange or compression member in resisti ...
bridge was built over Stony Brook. It is long and carries Pennsylvania Route 487. The average traffic over the bridge is 6310 vehicles per day, as of 2013. In 2009, 25 local volunteers cleaned up of 17.15 tons of debris that had been left at the confluence of Stony Brook with Fishing Creek during a flood in June 2006. Stony Brook is named for the fact that rocks are found in large numbers near it.


Biology

The
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is the agency in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania responsible for protecting and preserving the land, air, water, and public health through enforcement of the state's environmental laws ...
has designated the entire length of Stony Brook as an Exceptional Value Stream, giving it some legal protection. The trees in the valley of Stony Brook are mostly hemlock of various ages. Other trees inhabiting the valley include
beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...
,
basswood ''Tilia americana'' is a species of tree in the family Malvaceae, native to eastern North America, from southeast Manitoba east to New Brunswick, southwest to northeast Oklahoma, southeast to South Carolina, and west along the Niobrara River to ...
, two varieties of
oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...
,
yellow birch ''Betula alleghaniensis'', the yellow birch, golden birch, or swamp birch, is a large tree and an important lumber species of birch native to northeastern North America. Its vernacular names refer to the golden color of the tree's bark. In the p ...
,
black cherry ''Prunus serotina'', commonly called black cherry,World Economic Plants: A Standard Reference, Second Edition'. CRC Press; 19 April 2016. . p. 833–. wild black cherry, rum cherry, or mountain black cherry, is a deciduous tree or shrub in the r ...
,
pignut hickory ''Carya glabra'', the pignut hickory, is a common, but not abundant species of hickory in the oak-hickory forest association in the Eastern United States and Canada. Other common names are pignut, sweet pignut, coast pignut hickory, smoothbark ...
,
tulip poplar ''Liriodendron tulipifera''—known as the tulip tree, American tulip tree, tulipwood, tuliptree, tulip poplar, whitewood, fiddletree, lynn-tree, hickory-poplar, and yellow-poplar—is the North American representative of the two-species genus ...
, white ash, and
sugar maple ''Acer saccharum'', the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and the eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the ...
. There is also a substantial population of herbaceous plants in the bottom of the valley, particularly
fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...
s: nine species have been recorded. Native woodland flowers inhabit the edges of Stony Brook. These include
blue cohosh ''Caulophyllum thalictroides'', the blue cohosh, is a species of flowering plant in the Berberidaceae (barberry) family. It is a medium-tall perennial with blue berry-like fruits and bluish-green foliage. The common name cohosh is probably from a ...
, false hellebore, twisted stalk, miterwort, golden saxifrage, barren strawberry, false Solomon's seal, Solomon's seal, Canada violet, purple trillium, wild stonecrop,
trout lily ''Erythronium'', the fawn lily, trout lily, dog's-tooth violet or adder's tongue, is a genus of Eurasian and North American plants in the lily family, most closely related to tulips. The name Erythronium derives from Ancient Greek () "red" in ...
, dwarf ginseng, and white baneberry. An
overhead power line An overhead power line is a structure used in electric power transmission and distribution to transmit electrical energy along large distances. It consists of one or more conductors (commonly multiples of three) suspended by towers or poles. ...
crosses the valley of Stony Brook in one location. The area in its vicinity is inhabited by high numbers of
invasive plant An invasive species is an introduced species that harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native speci ...
s, such as
multiflora rose ''Rosa multiflora'' ( syn. ''Rosa polyantha'') is a species of rose known commonly as multiflora rose, baby rose, Japanese rose, many-flowered rose, seven-sisters rose, Eijitsu rose and rambler rose. It is native to eastern Asia, in China, Japan, ...
. There are small numbers of the
hemlock woolly adelgid ''Adelges tsugae'', the hemlock woolly adelgid () or HWA, is an insect of the order Hemiptera (true bugs) native to East Asia. It feeds by sucking sap from hemlock and spruce trees ('' Tsuga'' spp.; '' Picea'' spp.). In its native range, HWA ...
, which is considered a pest, in the watershed. In higher numbers, this insect could damage the watershed's hemlock forests.


See also

* Deerlick Run *
List of tributaries of Fishing Creek (North Branch Susquehanna River) There are 17 named tributaries of the main stem of Fishing Creek (North Branch Susquehanna River), Fishing Creek, a stream in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, in the United States and a tributary of the Susquehanna River. The creek also has numerou ...


References


External links

{{authority control Rivers of Columbia County, Pennsylvania Tributaries of Fishing Creek (North Branch Susquehanna River) Rivers of Pennsylvania