Fall River (Shasta County, California)

The Fall River is a 21.3-mile-long (34.3 km) river[3][4] tributary to the Pit River in north-eastern Shasta County in northern California. It is a designated Heritage and Wild Trout stream.

This article is about the river in Shasta County, California. For the river in Plumas County, California, see Fall River (Plumas County, California). For other uses, see Fall River (disambiguation).
Fall River
Location
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia
RegionShasta County, California
CityFall River Mills, California
Physical characteristics
SourceThousand Springs, a spring in Shasta County
 • coordinates41°06′52″N 121°33′12″W
 • elevation3,323 ft (1,013 m)[1]
Mouth 
 • location
Fall River Mills, California
 • coordinates
41°00′06″N 121°26′18″W[2]
 • elevation
3,291 ft (1,003 m)[2]
Basin features
Tributaries 
 • leftSpring Creek, Tule River
 • rightBear Creek

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.[5]

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.[6] The large volume of spring water inflow maintains Fall River water temperature at near optimum ranges for trout production, even during mid-summer.[4]

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.[7]

Watershed and course

The Fall River watershed drains a 612 square miles (1,590 km2) area that 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 an elevation of 3,323 feet (1,013 m).[8][9] 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.[4]

Fall River course.
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. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Thousand Springs
  2. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Fall River
  3. U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map Archived 2012-04-05 at WebCite, accessed March 10, 2011
  4. 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.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  5. Erwin Gustav Gudde (1969). 1000 California Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning. University of California Press. p. 28. ISBN 9780520014329. Retrieved 2015-07-25. gudde place names fall river.
  6. Allison Sherlock (Spring 2015). "Restoring California's Largest Spring-Fed River". CalTrout: 32–33. Retrieved 2015-07-26. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. 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.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  8. U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map Archived 2012-04-05 at WebCite, accessed July 26, 2015
  9. "Bear Creek". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.
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