Stream improvement: The Chicod Creek episode

Excerpt

LIFELONG residents of Pitt and Beaufort Counties in North Carolina recall how as children they fished and swam in Chicod Creek, a low-gradient stream typical of the state's Coastal Plain. The creek and its two main tributaries, Cow Swamp and Juniper Branch, drain about 35,000 acres of farmland and forest.

At one time Chicod Creek had a reasonably well-defined channel. However, logging in the early 1900s left debris in the creek and an adjoining swamp. Storm-toppled trees added to the blockage, and subsequent sediment accumulations from agricultural land and unpaved road runoff choked the stream's channel.

By the 1940s, flooding in the watershed caused severe crop losses. At least half the watershed's 10,000 acres of cropland suffered damage on the average of once every five years. Floodwater from Chicod Creek also blocked public roads periodically. An average of three flood-producing storms occurred annually in the watershed, with major floods plaguing the area in 1947 and again in 1955 (5).

A plan takes shape

In 1963, farmers in the Chicod Creek watershed requested help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to solve their flooding and drainage problems. The …